


and I breathe disaster, ever after

by expectopatronuz



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: (and by that i mean mcu canon-typical violence), Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Avengers AU, Brainwashing, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Temporary Amnesia, i'm assuming if you're reading this you've already seen it, oh also Civil War spoilers i guess, some implications of depression, stucky au, these tags are a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:08:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25584913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/expectopatronuz/pseuds/expectopatronuz
Summary: The Winter Soldier lands, and if Calum felt heavy before, now he feels empty. Everything inside of Calum, his heart and lungs and stomach and throat, they all drop right down to his feet. Calum is dizzy, he’s breathing but nothing is coming in. His mind is blank, every moment of his life up to this minute, gone. None of it matters, not a moment, except for this; Calum reaching out, the handle tearing away from the side of the train, and the way his heart fell out of his chest when he realized that there was nothing he could do, that it was too late.or, Calum is Captain America and Michael was his best friend (and maybe more)
Relationships: Luke Hemmings/Ashton Irwin, Michael Clifford/Calum Hood
Comments: 13
Kudos: 31





	and I breathe disaster, ever after

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bellawritess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellawritess/gifts).



> so! hello everyone! i have been working on this for a very long time and i'm so happy to finally post it! this is a captain america au, so if you have no experience with the mcu, this fic might not be for you. i did my best to make sure everything still makes sense, but especially in the second half, i missed a few things due to my insistence on having only one third-person-pov character. 
> 
> there are so many people i need to thank that have listened to me go on and on about this fic: [em](https://pixiegrl.tumblr.com/%22) for being endlessly patient with me and my ramblings, [meghna](https://reveriesofawriter.tumblr.com/) for being so encouraging when i'm being an idiot, [brooke](https://blackbutterfliescal.tumblr.com/) for making me believe this fic will have an audience, and so many more wonderful people on here and on tumblr who are always so, so kind about my writing. i keep doing it because of how wonderful this community is to me, and if you've ever interacted with me online, you deserve to be a part of this list
> 
> but this fic starts and ends with [bella](https://clumsyclifford.tumblr.com/). this fic literally only exists because a month ago, she asked me my 5sos mcu takes for [this post](https://calumsclifford.tumblr.com/post/622687676622143488/i-dont-think-ive-ever-been-anything-but-an) and we started talking about a stucky au. her enthusiasm and support are invaluable, and i would not be posting this if it weren't for her. bella, this fic is because of you and it is for you. you deserve the absolute world.
> 
> title is from [ever after](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkaMCFp4x38) by marianas trench! come visit me on [tumblr](https://calumsclifford.tumblr.com/)!

“I’m with you to the end of the line.”

Calum wakes with Michael’s voice ringing around his head, and for a moment, he’s certain that he’s dead.

There’s a baseball game on the radio, the last one he and Michael had gone to, just before Michael had been drafted. Calum thinks, for just a second, that he’ll turn, and Michael will be there, holding out a bag of peanuts, ready with a witty comment.

Calum slowly blinks his eyes open, and Michael’s not there. No one is there. He’s in a hospital room, only he knows that he’s not.

He sits up, already alert. The game plays on, and traffic sounds outside the open window, and Calum knows that this isn’t real.

The door clicks open and a red-haired girl walks in. She’s stiff, a bit nervous, but she smiles warmly.

“Good morning,” she says, then checks her watch. “Or, should I say, afternoon.”

“Where am I?” Calum asks.

“You’re in a recovery room in New York City,” she says with a soft, regretful smile. Calum knows that she’s lying.

“Where am I really?” he asks, and she breathes a laugh.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” she keeps smiling, and it’s starting to unnerve Calum.

“The game,” Calum says, voice going hard. “It’s from May 1941. I know, because I was there.”

Her face finally shifts into something more neutral, and Calum stands from the bed, takes a step back. “Captain Hood,” she says, but doesn’t seem to know what else to say.

“Where am I?” Calum asks. “Who are you?”

The door opens again behind her, and two men in uniform walk in, unmistakeably some branch of military. They start at him, and instinctually, Calum pushes them to the wall, hard. The wall breaks, they fly right through, only they don’t fly into another hospital room.

Calum jumps through the hole in the wall into what appears to be a massive warehouse – the entire hospital scene was entirely fabricated. He turns in place, spots a door and runs for it, bursts out and ends up in a hall, in which, impossibly, one wall is made entirely of glass. People are walking past, dressed in sleek black suits. He pushes past them, pushes through until he’s outside.

He runs right down the middle of the street, cars honking on either side of him, but that’s nothing new. He runs and runs until he finds himself in what he recognizes as Times Square, only it’s like a Times Square on another planet. It’s crowded, and he comes to a stop, turning wildly as he tries to take in the bright flashing lights, the neon signs, the screens.

It only takes a few seconds of hesitation, and he’s surrounded by cars, by more men in uniforms.

“At ease, soldier.”

Calum turns, follows the voice to a tall man in a long black coat and an eye-patch. Calum’s fought a man with an actual red skull for a head, but this man in an eye-patch is the most intimidating person he’s ever seen.

He approaches Calum, heaves a sigh. “I’m sorry about that little show back there, but we thought it would be best to break it to you slowly.”

“Break what?” Calum asks.

“You’ve been asleep, Cap,” he says, and Calum might even see some sympathy come to his eyes. “For almost 70 years.”

Calum looks away, looks around at the bright signs across what he knows in his heart is Times Square. He tries desperately to accept that it’s Times Square, just in the future. He remembers when he was last here with Michael, on New Year’s Eve to see the ball drop. Calum had gotten into a fight with a creep three times his size who had tried to pull a girl into an alley by her wrist, and Michael had stepped in to save Calum, like he always did.

He thinks about the moment he decided to put the plane in the Arctic, the moment he knew that it was the only way and that he was doing the right thing, but even before that, the moment Michael fell from the train and everything changed, forever.

“You going to be okay?” the man asks, but Calum can’t look at him. He turns away, remembers so vividly reaching out, the handle tearing away from the side of the train, the way his heart fell out of his chest when he realized he couldn’t reach him.

He remembers standing in a burning building, up on walkways, pit of fire between him and Michael, and Michael refusing to leave him there.

He remembers the horrible relief he felt when the plane was going down, knowing that he’d never have to try to learn to live without Michael.

He remembers sitting in a bar, Michael promising that he’d follow Calum anywhere, promising that once everything was all over, they’d go dancing.

“Yeah, it’s just – I had a date.”

Calum meets Ashton running by the Reflecting Pool one morning.

It’s a routine he’s fallen into since the whole New York City invasion happened and he’s been working with SHIELD. If he doesn’t get some of his energy out, he doesn’t sleep. If he doesn’t sleep, he has time to think about Michael. If he starts to think about Michael, he can’t stop until he’s distracted by a city-wide disaster that he has to prevent.

Ashton isn’t slow, he’s actually in remarkable shape. His pace is steady and he’s sweating, but he isn’t panting. He just can’t compete with super soldier serum.

“On your left,” Calum says as he passes him, the Washington Monument imposing across the water. He hears Ashton huff in annoyance, and Calum manages to smile as he flies past.

Calum passes him again in front of the Lincoln Memorial, again says “on your left.”

He’s fast, so Ashton’s voice is a bit lost in the wind, but Calum hears him huff again, and say “On my left, got it.”

When Calum comes up behind him once more, right at the top of the Reflecting Pool, Ashton starts muttering. “Don’t say it, don’t fucking say it.”

Calum supresses a grin and says, “on your left,” as he passes.

“Seriously?” Ashton groans, and Calum hears his feet pounding harder on the ground behind him.

When Calum loops around again, Ashton is sat against a tree, finally breathing heavily, apparently having given up.

“You alright?” Calum asks, stopping in front of him.

“Am I alright? You can fuck right off. Do you realize you ran like, 13 miles in a half hour?”

“Yeah, it must be an off day for me,” Calum says, a laugh in his voice.

“You disgust me, are you even human?” Ashton says with a laugh, too.

“Something like it, at least,” Calum says, and just like that, Calum knows that they’ll get along.

They introduce themselves, not that Calum needs to, as Ashton and every other American knows exactly who he is.

“It must have been hard, the whole being defrosted, thing,” Ashton says, and Calum forces a smile and desperately focuses on the New York Invasion, the technology he still isn’t used to, Iron Man (or Jack Barakat – Calum really needs to start referring to him by name) and the rest of the team. He forces himself to focus on everything new and nothing that’s missing.

“It’s taken some getting used to,” Calum says, a bit tightly.

“The bed is the worst, right?” Ashton asks.

“What?”

“The bed, it’s too soft. When I was overseas, I slept on the ground with rocks for pillows. Sleeping in a bed, it’s like—”

“Like lying on a cloud,” Calum finishes. “I keep feeling like I’m going to slip through, and—”

“Go into freefall,” Ashton says.

“What unit were you with?” Calum asks, and mentally berates himself for not having recognizes another ex-solider earlier.

“58th Pararescue,” Ashton says, then nods generically over his shoulder. “I work at the VA now, though.”

“How long?” Calum asks.

“Two tours, but I bet it was different for you,” Ashton watches Calum for a second, looking for some kind of reaction that he won’t find. “Do you miss it? The good old days?”

“Some parts of it,” Calum admits, but refuses to think about what those parts are. “It’s not so bad now.”

Ashton opens his mouth, like he’s about to ask more, but a car screeches to a stop behind them. It’s sleek, and black, and obnoxious, and expensive. The tinted window rolls down to reveal Luke, sunglasses on, looking as aloof as ever.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Luke says, like he’s not sorry at all. “Could you point me towards the Smithsonian? I’m here to pick up an ancient artefact.”

“Funny,” Calum says, turns back to Ashton. “Duty calls.”

“Thanks for the run,” Ashton says.

“You call that running?” Calum says, and Ashton throws his head back in a laugh.

“I like you,” Ashton says. Ashton pulls his wallet out of his pocket and fishes through it for a card – it has the VA address on one side, and what seems to be his personal address on the other. “The card is usually for vets in crisis, but if you ever want to stop by the VA—”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Luke honks the horn, drawing even more attention to them. “Come on, grandpa. You can make friends back at the nursing home.”

“Have you ever noticed that you only make the same three jokes, over and over?” Calum says as he slides into the car. Luke ignores him and leans forward, looks past him at Ashton.

“Hey,” Luke says, looks Ashton up and down appreciatively. Calum rolls his eyes.

“Hey,” Ashton returns, bemused but pleased.

“Is this a fucking social call?” Calum says, and Luke turns to the windshield, unbothered.

“We’re not going to the bingo hall, if that’s what you’re asking,” Luke says, and shifts gears.

“It was nice to meet you, Ashton,” Calum says, before they’re taking off, flying past the Reflecting Pool and into traffic.

“Did you do anything fun this weekend?” Luke asks him, in a Quinjet, approaching their target – a SHIELD ship taken over by pirates. Sometimes Calum feels like he’s back on his propaganda tour, his life is so ridiculous.

“Well, the guys from my soccer team are all dead, so—”

Luke scoffs. “I’ve seen photos of you from before the serum, we both know you were never playing soccer.”

“Fuck you,” Calum huffs.

“You know,” Luke says, ignoring him, as usual. “I have it on good authority that Kristen from statistics is into you. You should ask her out.”

“Is your good authority just that you’ve seen her check me out?” Calum asks. They’re almost at the drop zone, so he pulls on the mask, hooks his shield onto his back and plants his feet by the door.

“Yes,” Luke says. “But I’m still right.”

“Thanks for the heads up, now I definitely won’t ask,” Calum has to raise his voice as the door drops and wind starts to rush around them.

“Too shy?” Luke shouts, tone mocking. “Don’t worry, I’ll let you practice on me.”

“Not the problem,” Calum yells.

“What _is_ the problem?”

“None of your business,” Calum shouts, then he jumps.

He hits the water feet-first, clean, then climbs up onto the ship and starts taking out the guards. He’s fast and he’s quiet, and by the time the upper deck is cleared, Luke and the SHIELD team are finally landing, having bothered with parachutes.

Calum starts walking and Luke falls into step next to him, unclips his parachute. “What about Shelly from budgeting? She seems nice,” Luke says.

“She’s not my type.”

“So you _do_ have a type?”

“Can you worry about securing the engine room instead of finding me a date?”

“I’m a highly trained assassin, I can multitask,” Luke says, but breaks off from Calum and hops over a railing.

“Multitask in my favour, for once,” Calum says, but he’s not sure if Luke catches it before he disappears into a hall.

The fight moves fast, like it always does for Calum. He sprints across the ship, making calls, taking down the pirates, looking out for the SHIELD team, saving the hostages, finally pushing some martial artist through a door and turning to find Luke, bent over a computer.

“What are you doing?” Calum asks, because he distinctly remembers telling Luke that he needed to secure the engine room, and this is not that.

“Typing, it’s what you do on a computer. I know you’re unfamiliar, but I can assure you, it’s quite common.”

“Why aren’t you in the engine room?” Calum asks, looks over the screens and puts things together just a little too slowly. “You’re saving SHIELD intel?”

“Congratulations, you’ve learned to read a computer screen,” Luke says, sarcastic.

“Our mission is to rescue the hostages,” Calum says.

“No, that’s _your_ mission,” Luke smiles, collected as always. He finishes downloading the information and pulls a flash drive from the computer, smile shifting into something more smug.

“You’ve just jeopardized this whole operation,” Calum says, grabs Luke’s arm when he goes to leave. “We’re surrounded by SHIELD, what makes you think you can—”

“We both know they’d never catch me,” Luke says, and it’s true, but Calum is still frustrated.

“There are _lives_ in danger, our priority is saving lives.”

“What makes you think this won’t do that, too?” Luke asks, holds out the flash drive for a second, then tucks it away. “Listen, you played your part perfectly. That’s all you need to worry about.”

“But—”

“Calum, we need to go.”

Calum ducks into the Smithsonian in a baseball cap and a blue bomber jacket, which isn’t a great disguise, considering he’s in the Captain America exhibition and his face is on every wall.

He’s still fuming from his visit to Fury earlier in the day, still furious that America’s idea of protection is, for all intents and purposes, a gun in the sky that can neutralize any threat, at any time.

The museum has his old bike, the one he used during the war. They have footage on screens everywhere, lots of footage that he didn’t even know about. He avoids looking at them as much as he can, afraid of who he might see.

They have the Howling Commandos’ uniforms, displayed up on mannequins with glorifying portraits in the background. Calum can’t help but look at the blue coat with the buttons, identical to the one Michael used to wear. He knows it’s not the same one, though. Michael’s was lost in the Russian mountains with the rest of him.

He turns and an old photo of Michael is suddenly in his face, and Calum swallows hard. There are a few paragraphs next to it, talking about how Michael was a star athlete and top of their class, which is certainly an exaggeration. It also says that he enlisted after the attack on Pearl Harbour, which isn’t true. He was drafted.

It talks about how they met as children on a playground in Brooklyn, which _is_ true, but doesn’t capture even the tip of the iceberg that was their relationship. It says nothing about how Calum does not remember a time before Michael, that Michael has saved his life so many times and in so many ways, but Calum couldn’t do the same for him.

There’s footage of them underneath the photo, black and white and grainy. Calum doesn’t know where it’s from, doesn’t remember when it was taken. They’re both out of uniform, staring into each other’s eyes as they laugh at something Michael said. Michael looks away first, but Calum’s eyes follow him as he moves.

Calum can’t bear to watch it, can’t stand there for a moment longer. He doesn’t know why he came, doesn’t know why he thought this would help him feel more patriotic, or something. He doesn’t know why he thought that this would convince him that Fury and SHIELD know best, that he can’t understand because he’s not from here, not really. Calum has always understood freedom, he’s always fought for freedom. He may not understand technology or modern politics or electronic music, but he’s always understood what’s right.

He tries the VA, next. He doesn’t know why until he rounds a corner and finds Ashton standing at a podium as a woman talks about her PTSD. He’s open and understanding, and when she finishes talking, he starts to speak, calm and strong.

“Some things, we leave there, but some things we bring back. We don’t get to decide what we bring, but we get to decide how we carry it.”

Ashton wraps up the meeting afterwards, chats with some of the veterans. Calum leans against a wall and tries to be invisible, but no one looks at him twice.

After everyone else has cleared out, Ashton finally comes over. “I was sure I had hallucinated you,” Ashton says. “No real person can run like you did, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a car like that in my life.”

“It was really me, unfortunately,” Calum says.

“Unfortunately for me, because I had my entire self-image destroyed within a half hour?” Ashton asks.

“Unfortunately for me, because I had to make your acquaintance.”

Ashton laughs, but it’s a bit softer than last time. “Do you want to go sit? _Can_ you even sit, or are you like an action figure with weird stiff joints?”

“I can sit,” Calum laughs, and follows Ashton to the back row of chairs.

“So, how long were you listening?” Ashton asks.

“Just a few minutes at the end,” Calum says. “It’s intense stuff.”

“Well, we all deal with shit. Guilt, regret. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you,” Ashton says.

Calum sees something more familiar than that in Ashton’s eyes. “Did you lose someone?”

Ashton nods. “My best friend, my wingman. He went down during a night mission, knocked right out of the sky. There was nothing I could do.”

“I’m sorry,” Calum says. He knows he doesn’t need to explain that he understands, he knows that Ashton can see it.

“It doesn’t ever get easy,” Ashton says. “It gets better, but never easy.”

Calum looks away. “Is that why you came back?”

“It was a big part of it, yeah.”

“And are you happier now?” Calum asks, and a smile reappears on Ashton’s face, however slight.

“I mean, I don’t miss the wake-up calls, or the uniforms. I don’t miss the orders.”

“So, yes?”

Ashton shrugs. “Why? Are you thinking of getting out?”

“No,” Calum says, quick and instinctual, then remembers that he’s here. “I don’t know.”

“It’s hard to let things change,” Ashton says.

“I don’t know what I’d even do with myself,” Calum admits. The job keeps him busy, and being busy is the only thing that keeps him going.

“Modeling? Ultimate fighting?” Ashton suggests, and Calum laughs. “Really, man. You could do anything, whatever you wanted. What makes you happy?”

Calum knows what makes him happy, or rather, who makes him happy, and he knows that he’ll never be anywhere near him again. “I don’t know,” he says, because it’s easier, but also because he doesn’t feel like he needs to explain.

Ashton’s face softens, a bit. “It takes time, but there will be something. I promise.”

Calum forces a smile and shrugs. “I don’t think anything can ever measure up.”

“You’re right,” Ashton says. “It won’t, but it’ll be on the leaderboard, at least.”

When Calum gets back to his apartment, Nick Fury is there, clutching his side.

“I didn’t know we had plans,” Calum says, slightly on guard.

“I like to keep you guessing,” Fury says, in obvious pain. “My wife kicked me out.”

“I didn’t know you were married,” Calum moves to turn on the light, but Fury holds up a hand, then types something in his phone, holds it up to show Calum.

**Ears everywhere.**

Calum frowns, but nods.

“I’m sorry to do this, but I needed somewhere to crash,” Fury says, carefully casual. He types as he speaks and hold up his phone again.

**SHIELD compromised.**

“Who else knows about your wife?” Calum askes, keeping his tone even.

“My friends,” Fury says, but he holds up his phone again.

**You and me.**

“Friends,” Calum says. Fury stands, but it’s clearly painful for him to do so. “Is that what we are?”

“That’s up to you.”

They look at each other, calculating, for only a moment, before a shot tears through the wall and right into Fury’s back. Calum ducks down as a second shot fires and Fury falls to the ground. Calum pulls him out of the room, into the hall, but before he can let go, Fury grasps his arm.

“Don’t – trust – anyone—” he says, gasping for breath. He holds out a flash drive – Calum’s pretty sure it’s the same flash drive that Luke had on the ship. Calum hesitates but takes it, just as Fury falls unconscious.

“What the _fuck_ —” Calum says to himself, then catches a flash of movement from the window – a figure, on the roof opposite his. He takes off without thinking, grabs his shield and bursts out the window, through to the building across his.

He runs, watching the figure through sporadic skylights. The figure is fast, almost as fast as Calum, maybe faster. Calum manages to burst though a window, across to another roof just after the figure lands. He throws his shield, dead-on, perfectly aimed. He slows, he has them.

He doesn’t have them. The man turns – Calum is pretty sure that it’s a man – and catches the shield with perfect timing. A loud screech of metal-on-metal sounds and Calum watches his face, half covered with a mask and dark smudges around his eyes, and his dark hair falling across his forehead.

They face each other for a moment, and Calum is frozen, absolutely paralyzed with something unidentifiable. For a frightening moment, he thinks it might be some kind of recognition, but it slips away just as quickly as it came.

The man stares back for a second, then there’s more metal grinding against metal as he’s pulling back his metal arm and throwing the shield right back at Calum.

He catches it in front of his stomach with both hands, but it’s hard, it stings at his hands and the force of it pushes him back. He keeps his balance, but barely, and when he looks back up, the man is gone.

Luke meets Calum at the hospital, in the observation gallery, where they definitely should not be allowed.

Luke’s the closest to emotional that Calum’s ever seen him, which is to say, he’s slightly less than completely composed.

“Is he going to make it?” Luke asks, voice steady, staring at Fury.

“I don’t know,” Calum says.

“The shooter, who was he?”

“I don’t know, his face was covered,” Calum says.

“Tell me about him.”

Calum takes a long breath. “He was fast, and strong. Really strong. And—” Calum takes another breath. “He had a metal arm.”

“Ballistics?” Luke asks, which Calum only knows because Hill told him moments earlier.

“Three slugs, no rifling. Completely untraceable,” Calum recites.

“Soviet made?” Luke asks, and Calum turns to look at him.

“Yeah,” Calum says, surprised.

He turns back sharply as shrill beeps and voices begin to grow frantic – Fury is dying, and the doctors are scrambling around him, but there’s nothing they can do.

Calum walks out as they call time of death, leaving Luke to stare blankly at the operation table for only a moment, before he hears steps pounding behind him.

“Calum,” Luke calls, and Calum wants to pretend not to hear him, but he knows that he can’t fool Luke, so he stops. “Why was Fury at your apartment?” Luke asks.

Calum shakes his head, mind racing with _don’t trust anyone_ and _guns in the sky_ and _a flash drive on a ship_ and, as always, _a man falling out of a train_. “I don’t know,” he says.

“You’re a terrible liar,” Luke says, voice suddenly hard. Calum freezes, but Luke turns and disappears around a corner, and people are calling for him, shouting that he’s needed at SHIELD, _now_ , so he goes.

(But not before hiding the flash drive at the back of the vending machine being stocked one hallway over).

Calum’s head is spinning as he waits for the elevator outside of Alexander Pierce’s office.

Too much has happened in too few days, and he’s tired and on edge and confused.

He doesn’t know if he believes Pierce – he doesn’t know if he believes that Fury hired those pirates to attack that ship so that he could get intel. He knows that he doesn’t trust Pierce, but he’s not sure that he trusts Fury, either.

The elevator arrives and Calum steps in, looks out through the glass to the Potomac. Just before the doors close, a few SHIELD guys walk in – Rumlow among them. The elevator goes down and one of the guys has his hand on his holster.

A floor down they stop again, and the elevator fills. Calum watches them as they force small talk, some of them sweating. He’s surrounded, the elevator packed, and his mind is racing, but he knows what he sees.

“Before we get started,” he says. “Does anyone want to get out?”

Then they’re fighting. Some guy has Calum in a chokehold, his shield in on the ground, another tries to force some sort of enhanced cuff to his wrist as two other guys hold his arms. He manages to kick their knees out, hits hard with his elbows until he’s free. From there it’s not even hard, and everyone is down.

He grabs his shield and presses the button to open the elevator, but the hall is filled with a tactical team, weapons on him. He cuts the elevator cords and it plummets, so he stays low. When it screeches to a stop between two floors, Calum pries a set of doors open, only to find another team rushing in, ready for him.

“Fuck—” Calum says to himself, lets the doors fall closed. He looks through the glass again, down through the glass of the first floor. It’s high, but he hears shouts from the hall and prefers those odds.

He backs up and then crashes through the elevator, shield-first at a run. He manages to keep his shield below him through the fall, breaks through the glass ceiling and hits the floor hard. Everything hurts but he forces himself up, forces himself into a stumbling run.

He gets to the garage and throws himself onto his bike, starts it and has it going before he can be surrounded. He makes it through the doors, hears them slam shut behind him, and he makes it past the spikes, but barely.

It takes far too long for Calum to make it back to the hospital, so he shouldn’t be surprised when the row of bubble gum he’d hidden the flash drive behind is empty.

He also shouldn’t be surprised when Luke appears at his side, chewing obnoxiously, but it’s been a very long few days, and he’s still not over things that happened 70 years ago, let alone last week.

He pushes Luke into a bathroom and locks the door behind him, gets in Luke’s space, backs him against a wall. Luke, as usual, is composed and unbothered.

“Where is it?” Calum asks, voice shifting dangerously close to desperation.

“It’s safe,” Luke says, and pops his gum.

“I’m going to need more than that.”

“I’m going to need to know where you got it,” Luke says.

“I’m going to need you to give me one good reason to trust you,” Calum says, careful to keep his voice low.

“Fury gave it to you,” Luke guesses, or maybe reads it on his face. Calum’s never had a firm grasp on Luke’s abilities. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Calum says, “What’s on it?”

“I don’t know,” Luke says, and Calum might believe him, somehow.

“You knew that Fury hired the pirates though,” Calum guesses but he can see on Luke’s carefully neutral face that he was right.

“No one told me.”

“But you knew,” Calum says.

“Well, it makes sense. The ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in.”

“So you _do_ know what’s on the flash drive?” Calum says, accusing.

“No, I really don’t,” Luke says, and Calum shakes his head, opens his mouth to accuse him of lying, but Luke talks first. “I know who killed Fury, though.”

Calum stares at him, speechless.

“Most of the intelligence community doesn’t believe he exists,” Luke says, flicks his eyes across the bathroom, checking for ears. “The ones that do call him the Winter Soldier. He’s credited with over two dozen assassinations in the past 50 years.”

“So he’s a ghost story,” Calum says, but he has no place judging the possible and the impossible, not anymore.

“He’s real,” Luke promises. “I know that he’s real.”

“How?”

“Five years ago, I was on a mission in Iran, protecting a nuclear engineer. Our tires were shot out, we went straight over a cliff. I got us out, but the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering the engineer, so he shot him, straight through me,” Luke says, lifts the corner of his shirt to show Calum a scar near his hip. “Soviet slug, no riffling.”

“And you didn’t go after him?”

“I tried,” Luke says. “Dead end.”

“A ghost story,” Calum repeats, but this time he believes it.

“A ghost story,” Luke echoes. He searches Calum’s eyes, then produces the flash drive out of nowhere. Calum takes it, and Luke lets him.

“Well,” Calum says, and something has shifted between them. Luke gave Calum the flash drive, so Calum gives Luke this; “Let’s go track down a ghost. How hard can it be?”

Luke puts them in ridiculous outfits, including the least sensible sneakers that Calum’s ever seen, and takes him to a mall.

They find a store with tables of computers on display and Luke starts typing at one, too fast for Calum to keep track. “The drive has a homing program, so as soon as we boot up, SHIELD will know exactly where we are,” Luke says, looks up with a smirk. “Do you need me to dumb that down for you? I know the older generation struggles with technology.”

“Shut up,” Calum huffs. “How much time do we have?”

“About nine minutes from the moment we plug it in,” Luke says, then stops typing, holds out his hand.

Calum hands it over, Luke watches him. “Go on, let’s do this,” Calum says, and Luke nods, and plugs in the flash drive.

Calum watches the entrance of the store, watches through, watches the people walking by as Luke clacks the keys.

“Fury was right about the ship, someone’s trying really hard to hide something. The drive, it’s protected by some sort of AI. It keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands.”

Calum is unwilling to admit that he mostly doesn’t understand what that means. “Can you get through it?” he asks, hoping he doesn’t sound like a complete idiot.

The smirk on Luke’s face says that he’s probably not getting away with it, but Luke doesn’t comment. “I know my way around a computer, but I’m not a coder. Whoever wrote this is slightly smarter than me.”

Calum keeps looking around, watching for signs of a threat. He knows that he’s starting to look shifty, but he can feel it coming.

“I’m going to try running a tracer, see if we can at least find out where the file came from.”

Calum’s eyes flicker down to the screen as a map settles over New Jersey, narrows in closer. Calum leans in, sighs.

“You know it?” Luke asks.

“You could say that,” Calum says. “Let’s go.”

They make it out of the mall, but it’s close – SHIELD is already everywhere. They hadn’t even taken close to nine minutes.

Calum has to steal them a car, because somehow, despite Luke being probably the shiftiest person he’s ever met, he doesn’t know how.

“Never mind me,” Luke says after Calum makes another comment about it, just as they’re crossing into New Jersey. “Where the fuck did Captain America learn to steal a car?”

“Nazi Germany,” Calum says without looking away from the road.

“I find that very hard to believe,” Luke says.

“It’s true, I never needed one, before. I lived in New York.”

“There weren’t cars in New York?” Luke asks, sarcastic.

“I didn’t need a car to get anywhere I wanted to go,” Calum says. He and Michael loved the train, something about it feeling so liminal and endless. They always felt that anything was possible. Calum can’t spend more than a few seconds thinking about Michael and trains in the same sentence though, so he reaches out a hand to bat at Luke’s knee, bent to rest his feet on the dashboard. “My stolen car, my rules. Get your feet down.”

Luke drops his legs without argument. “Did the skill come with the serum?”

“No,” Calum laughs. “A friend taught us. He was this sketchy French guy – I was never confident that I understood what he was saying, and not just because of the language barrier.”

“Us?” Luke asks.

“Huh?”

“Who’s us? You said _us_ , not _me_.”

“Oh,” Calum considers brushing it off, because he’s pretty sure that Luke won’t push it, but it seems ridiculous to hide from him, now. “Me and Michael Clifford. He was – he was—”

“Your best friend,” Luke finishes, voice unreadable. Calum doesn’t turn away from the road, but he wants to see Luke’s face. “I’ve read the history books.”

Calum scoffs, because the history books don’t know a damn thing.

“Hey,” Luke says, tone shifting to signal a topic change. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Go for it.”

“You don’t have to answer it, but I mean, if you don’t, you’ll still kind of be answering it—”

“Are these your legendary interrogation skills at work? I thought I’d be more impressed,” Calum says. Luke ignores him.

“Why won’t you go on any dates? You could probably get anyone you want.”

“I haven’t met anyone I want, yet,” Calum says, and knows that he won’t, never again.

“You must have some impossibly high standards,” Luke jokes, but Calum’s all too serious.

“I do.”

“What is it that everyone’s missing?”

 _Everything that Michael was_ , Calum thinks. “Shared life experience,” he says, because it’s much easier to explain.

“No two people in the world have perfect shared life experience,” Luke says. “You’ve just got to make something up.”

“Is that what you do?” Calum asks, eyes finally flickering to the passenger seat. Luke’s head is tilted to him and he’s smiling softly. Calum looks back at the road.

“The truth is a matter of circumstance, you know?” Luke says. “What people believe, that’s what matters. The truth is never going to be the same to everyone, all the time, and neither am I.”

“That sounds like a tough way to live.”

“But it’s a really good way to _not die_ ,” Luke says. The smile has dropped out of his voice.

“It’s not easy to trust someone when you don’t know who they are,” Calum says, meaning Luke’s relationships but also their friendship, surprisingly. He wasn’t really aware that he cared.

“Yeah,” Luke says, then takes a long pause. They sit in silence for a few minutes watching the road ahead. “Who do you want me to be?” Luke says.

Calum lets out an imperceptible sigh. “A friend, maybe?”

Luke laughs. “Captain America, friends with an assassin. Sounds like the punchline to a joke my father might have told me, if I remembered him.”

Calum knows better than to ask, so he forces a smile. “Captain America, an assassin, and a stolen car walk into a bar—”

Luke laughs again. “Yeah, it would go something like that.”

They pull up to a closed fence and get out of the car. Even from outside, Calum is flooded with nostalgia, remembers limping through training and Dr. Erskine and the serum. Remembers being so certain that he’d be able to just go overseas and find Michael and everything would go back to normal.

“The file came from these coordinates,” Luke says, looking between his phone and Calum.

Calum nods at the Camp Lehigh sign. “So did I.”

They search through the grounds until they come to a building out of place. Calum breaks the lock with his shield and they make their way down some stairs, into what appears to be a SHIELD office. 

“Maybe this is where it started?” Calum says, and Luke shrugs. They walk past desks, glancing over papers on each. They find a hallway filled with mail slots and framed photos, including one of Howard Barakat, Jack’s father. Luke points it out, and Calum nods.

Calum notices a stack of shelves that haven’t collected cobwebs like the rest and goes to shake it, unsurprised when he feels a give. He pushes it to the side and finds an elevator. It’s protected by a passcode, but Luke has a program on his phone that somehow decodes it.

They take the elevator down, it leads to only one floor, it seems. They step out when it comes to a stop, into a dark room.

They’re quiet, both on guard. Lights begin to flicker on as they make their way in, revealing a control board equipped with several old computers.

Luke steps right up to it, so Calum follows.

“This can’t be the data point,” Luke says. “This technology is almost as old as you are.”

Calum doesn’t laugh, because he’s pretty sure it wasn’t actually a joke, this time. Luke steps closer, spots something. Calum steps up to see a much more modern input box. “The flash drive,” Luke says, holds out his hand behind him.

“Are you sure?”

“It’s the only lead we’ve got,” Luke says, so Calum fishes the flash drive out of his pocket and hands it over.

It’s instant. When Luke plugs the drive in, the computers whir loudly to life, and a message pops up on the largest screen, right in the centre of the control board.

**Initiate system?**

Luke looks back at Calum, who shrugs. Luke turns to the computer, and types **yes**. 

The screen flashes and flickers, eventually lighting up into some sort of pixilated face.

“Hood, Calum,” comes out of the computer, which apparently has a German accent. “Born 1918. Hemmings, Luke, born 1984.”

“It’s some kind of recording,” Luke says uncertainly.

“I am not a recording,” the computer says, before Luke’s even finished talking. “I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am.”

A picture appears on one of the smaller screens, and it takes Calum a moment to place the face.

“Zola,” Calum says to himself.

“You know this thing?” Luke asks.

“Zola,” Calum repeats. “Arnim Zola. He was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. He’s been dead for years.”

“First correction,” the computer says. “I am Swiss. Second, look around you. I have never been more alive.”

Calum and Luke exchange a glance, suspicious. Calum begins to circle the control board, looking for anything that might explain anything at all.

“In 1972,” the computer continues, “I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body, but my mind was worth saving. You are standing in my brain.”

“How did you get here?” Calum says, circles back to stand next to Luke.

“I was invited,” the computer says, and it somehow sounds almost offended.

Luke looks at Calum, slightly sympathetic, or maybe guilty. “After World War II, SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic value.”

“They thought I could help their cause,” the computer says. “But I also helped my own.”

“No,” Calum says. “HYDRA died with Red Skull.”

The computer does something that sounds like a laugh. “Cut off one head, two more take it’s place.”

“Prove it,” Calum spits. He can see Luke staring at him in his periphery, but he won’t take his eyes off the screen.

Images flash by the screen, Johann Schmidt, wearing a human face, rows of soldiers saluting HYDRA, soldiers jumping out of boats and into a fight. “HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with it’s own freedom,” the computer – Zola? says. “What we did not realize was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist.”

Calum feels Luke tensing next to him, planting his feet for a fight.

“The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, SHIELD was founded, and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew, a beautiful parasite inside SHIELD. For 70 years, HYDRA has been feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate, history was changed.”

New images flash; a metal arm holding a sniper rifle, another flash of the metal arm, and a car hitting a tree – the ghost, the Winter Soldier.

“That’s impossible,” Luke says, startling Calum. “SHIELD would have stopped you.”

“Accidents will happen,” Zola says, and a newspaper article appears on a screen. There’s a photo of Howard Barakat, and a headline telling Calum that he and his wife were killed in a car accident. Calum thinks of Jack, and his stomach sinks. “HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally willing to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security.”

Videos appear this time, videos from the bunker that Calum visited with Fury, videos of the ships meant to stay in the sky, the ships with the guns that can neutralize any threat at any time – the guns that can neutralize any target at any time.

“Once a purification process is complete, HYDRA’s new world order will rise. We won, Captain. Your death amounts to the same as your life, a zero sum.”

Without thinking, without pause, Calum punches his fist through the screen, watches as it flickers to black and Zola’s pixilated, distorted face is gone, but only for a moment. He appears on the smaller screen as if nothing happened.

Calum looks back at Luke desperately, but Luke’s feet are still planted, still ready to fight as he watches the screen intently.

“What’s on this drive?” Calum asks.

“Project insight requires insight. I wrote an algorithm.”

“What kind of algorithm?” Luke asks, aloof and casual – his battle face, Calum realizes. “What does it do?”

“The answer to your question is fascinating,” Zola says. Calum feels the ground hum around them, tenses and lifts his shield. “Unfortunately, you will be too dead to hear it.”

The elevator door slams closed behind them with an echoing bang. Luke’s phone beeps frantically, and he pulls it out. “Short range ballistic, incoming. We have 30 seconds, tops.”

“What? Who fired it?” Calum asks.

“SHIELD.” Luke grabs the flash drive, Calum looks around, but there’s no escape route. He pulls up a grate on the floor, finds a large vent space. He turns and Luke is there, jumps in ahead and Calum follows, crouches in close, pulls Luke’s head into his neck to protect it, and lifts the shield over them just as the missile hits and the building around them begins to crumble.

Calum loses track of everything as darkness surrounds them, but he has an arm around Luke’s waist, so he knows that he’s still there. The pressure of debris against his shield is nearly crippling, and Calum’s mind goes right to the train, and Michael, and how he couldn’t reach him.

The concreate above them settles, and Calum’s eyes struggle to adjust to the dark. “Luke?” Calum shakes him, but he doesn’t answer. Calum fumbles his fingers at Luke’s neck and finds a pulse, sighs in relief.

He sets Luke down, gently as he can, and fights to shift the debris. It takes him longer than he has, but he manages it, coughing away the dust when he can finally feel some air. He stumbles back and scoops Luke up, hanging tall and awkward in his arms, unconscious.

He gets them back to the car just as the Quinjets appear overhead.

Luke comes to about twenty minutes away from Ashton’s apartment.

The sun is coming up, and Calum’s been nervously tapping at the steering wheel the whole ride, too paranoid to even turn on the radio. He breathes a sigh of relief when he hears Luke shifting next to him.

Luke looks back and forth, takes a long breath and collects himself. “Where are we going?”

“A friend’s,” Calum says. “Are you okay?”

Luke shoots Calum a look, telling him to drop it. “What friend?”

“Ashton, from the VA.”

“You’ve met him what, twice?” Luke asks, incredulous.

“I trust him more than I trust anyone else, right now, so unless you’ve got any bright ideas?”

“Let me try Alex,” Luke says, feeling around for his phone. He doesn’t find it, must have lost it in New Jersey. “Fuck.”

“Gaskarth is in Iowa, last I heard,” Calum says. “Keeps saying that he’s retiring. You should let him; he deserves to be with his family. Let him hang up the bow and arrow.”

“He’ll help me if I need him,” Luke says.

“I know, but there’s nothing he can do for us. Not right now,” Calum says, and Luke sighs, because Calum is right.

They’re quiet the rest of the way. Calum double checks the card he’s kept in his wallet until they pull up on a quaint complex.

“Are you sure we can trust him?” Luke asks, and Calum nods. “Are you sure he’ll even let us in?” Luke says, but he’s really just asking the same question with different words.

“Just come on,” Calum says, puts the car in park and leads Luke up the stairs. He knocks on the door and Ashton answers it in seconds, sweaty and in workout clothes. He frowns, taking in the dust and dirt and blood all over both Calum and Luke.

“Hey man,” Ashton says, voice steady. Calum wonders if stranger things have turned up on his doorstep.

“I’m sorry about this,” Calum says. “We need a place to lay low.”

“Everyone in this city is trying to kill us,” Luke chimes in.

Ashton stares at them a second later, then steps aside, holds the door open to let them in. “Not everyone.”

They both shower and change into clothes that Ashton leant them. Calum is a bit too broad and Luke is a bit too tall, but with tank tops and sweatpants, they make do.

Ashton has food ready for them once they’re clean, says “I made breakfast, if you guys even eat that sort of thing,” and then he ducks into the bathroom to shower, too. Calum and Luke eat on a sofa, side by side, staring straight ahead.

“What’s going on?” Calum asks, after Luke has tensed and forced himself to relax for a third time.

Luke sighs. “I joined SHIELD to go straight, to get out of – out of, whatever—” Luke trails off, and Calum thinks that this time, if he asked, Luke would tell him the truth. For the first time, though, Calum thinks that he might not want to know. “I guess I just traded in the KGB for HYDRA.”

“You didn’t know,” Calum says.

“I should have. I’m trained to know, I’m trained to see through the lies,” Luke says, looks down. “I guess I might not know the difference anymore – between the truth and the stories.”

“You chose to be better,” Calum says, and Luke scoffs. “Or at least to try. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“There is where I’m from,” Luke says. He sighs and turns, looks Calum right in the eyes. “Thank you,” he says, and he doesn’t say what for, but he doesn’t need to. Calum knows.

“It’s okay,” Calum says, tries to brush it off, but Luke holds his stare.

“If it was the other way around, if it was down to me to save your life, would you trust me to do it?”

Calum stares right back, stares at Luke and tries desperately to read him. He can’t, as usual, but this time it doesn’t feel like it’s because Luke is wearing a mask. “I would now,” he says, and he means it.

Ashton joins them once he’s towel-dried his hair, comes in carrying a folder. Calum smiles at him as he sits in an armchair across from the sofa, a thanks for the food and for the hideout and for the VA and for the run.

“You seem to be in a good mood,” Ashton says, slightly bemused.

“Especially for a guy who just found out that he died for nothing,” Luke says, Calum chuckles.

“At least we know who we’re fighting, now. At least we have a place to start,” he says, turns to Luke. “We need to figure out who at SHIELD could launch a domestic missile strike.”

“Why are you asking a question you already know the answer to?” Luke says.

Calum sighs. “Pierce.”

Luke smiles again in agreement. “Pierce. Who is currently sitting at the top of the most secure building in the world.”

“He can’t be working alone,” Calum says. He turns to Ashton who nods in agreement, even though he can’t have a clue what they’re talking about. “Zola’s algorithm was on the SHIELD ship.”

“With Jasper Sitwell,” Luke says.

“Who?” Calum asks.

“Bald guy, tight neckties, kind of a whiney voice,” Luke says, and Calum still can’t put a face to the name, but he’s decided that he trusts Luke, now.

“Alright, sounds easy, then. We, as the two most wanted people in Washington, just have to kidnap a SHIELD officer in broad daylight. No problem,” Calum says, sarcastic.

Ashton huffs and tosses the folder onto the coffee table between them. “It doesn’t have to be that complicated.”

“What’s this?” Calum asks, gesturing down to the folder.

“You can call it a resume,” Ashton says, corners of his lips lifting. Calum flips it open, Luke reads over his shoulder.

There are photographs and documents. Luke scans through them faster, nodding along. “The Khalid Khandil mission, that was you?” Luke sounds impressed, and Calum looks up at him in surprise.

“Yeah,” Ashton says. Luke’s eyes fall back down to the folder.

“I heard that they couldn’t bring in the choppers because of the RPGs. What did you use? A stealth chute?”

“No,” Ashton says. “Turn the page.”

Calum does, and takes in the blueprint, the images. It takes a moment to understand, because he still gets caught up in the impossibilities of technology. He flips to the next page, an image of the tech in action, of Ashton in the sky, with wings.

“I thought you were a pilot,” Calum says, looks up at Ashton.

Ashton laughs. “I never said pilot.”

Calum flips another page, and there’s a picture of Ashton, arm around another man, both grinning. He remembers Ashton talking about losing his best friend, and he swallows a lump in his throat.

“I can’t ask you to do this. I won’t, Ashton,” he says.

“I’m offering,” Ashton says. Calum shakes his head.

“You left for a good reason.”

“Captain America needs my help,” Ashton says, grins. “There’s no better reason to get back in.”

“Ashton—”

“I left because I needed to at the time. Maybe now, I need something else.”

Calum looks at Luke, who nods.

“Okay,” Calum says. “Where can we get our hands on one of these?”

They manage to get Sitwell up on a roof.

“What does Zola’s algorithm do?” Calum asks, pushes Sitwell forward by the shoulders, just enough that he’s stumbling.

“I’ve never heard of it,” Sitwell says, but he’s panicking. Luke comes up behind Calum, relaxed.

“What were you doing on the SHIELD ship?” Calum asks, backs Sitwell closer to the edge.

“Supervising. I am SHIELD, you know.”

“Do you believe him?” Calum asks Luke, who grins and shakes his head. Calum steps further forward and Sitwell reaches the edge of the roof, stumbles and nearly falls right over. Calum catches him by the suit jacket.

“Are you trying to insinuate that you’ll throw me off a roof? You need to work on your intimidation skills, this really isn’t your style.”

“You’re right,” Calum says, backs up. “It’s his,” he nods at Luke, who kicks out at Sitwell’s chest and sends him over the edge.

They don’t watch as he begins to fall. Luke turns to him. “So, what about that girl from accounting? Laurel, I think? She’s definitely into you.”

“It’s Lillian,” Calum corrects. “But she’s not my type.”

Luke sighs, as Ashton appears over the edge of the building, mechanical wings spread, clutching Sitwell by the collar of his shirt. He drops him in front of Calum and Luke and flies right over them, banks and plants his feet on the ground, retracting the wings gracefully as he turns.

“I think we may have found ourselves a showboat,” Luke says, but he’s grinning appreciatively and shamelessly checking Ashton out.

“Finally, someone that might come close to matching your theatrics,” Calum says. Sitwell starts to recover himself and stumbles to his feet, so Calum, Luke and Ashton surround him, standing casually.

“It’s a program,” Sitwell chokes out. “Zola’s algorithm is a program for choosing Insight’s targets.”

“What targets?” Calum asks.

“You,” Sitwell says. “All of you. Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, a TV anchor in Chiro. Anyone who’s a threat to HYDRA, now or in the future.”

“How is that possible?” Calum asks.

“It evaluates people’s past to predict their future, then the Insight helicarriers scratch people off of the list, a few million at a time,” Sitwell says.

Calum and Luke exchange a glace, then they look at Ashton.

“We need to move,” Calum says. They follow.

They get Sitwell into Ashton’s car, shoved into the back with Luke because Luke is the better fighter in close quarters.

Luke types on Ashton’s borrowed phone but keeps looking up when Sitwell shifts, effectively intimidating him. “Insight launches in 16 hours,” Luke says without looking up as they make their way onto an overpass. “We’re going to be cutting this a little close.”

“I know, I know,” Calum says. Ashton looks at him from the driver’s seat, calculating. “We’ll use Sitwell to bypass the DNA scans and access the helicarriers directly.”

“What? Are you crazy?” Sitwell says, leans forward. Luke stretches a hand out to push him back into his seat. “That is a terrible, terrible idea—”

There’s a shatter, and Calum looks back just in time to see Sitwell being pulled through the broken window and thrown into traffic. He doesn’t have time to panic or to feel guilty, but he knows it’ll come later. He only has time to ready his shield, feels Luke tense in the back. Ashton’s grip tightens on the steering wheel, something in his eyes hardens.

There are thuds on the roof of the car, someone moving around. Luke dodges a bullet through the roof at the last second by jumping into the front seat, folded half on top of Calum. He shifts the car into park, which throws the man off of the roof.

The Winter Soldier flies out in front of them, twists in midair and reaches a hand out to steady himself as he lands, crouched but on his feet. Calum feels his heart pounding, feels everything in him grow heavy.

The Winter Soldier stands, facing them in the middle of a highway, wearing a mask and hair falling into his face. Traffic passes around them, but they’re all frozen.

A car hits them from behind, pushes them forward. Calum is aware enough to realize that it’s a SHIELD car, but unable to do anything to stop it when they reach the Winter Solider and he jumps back up on the roof.

Ashton slams on the brakes, tries to force the car to slow. The Winter Soldier smashes the windshield with his metal arm and tears the steering wheel right out.

“Fuck!” Ashton screams, looks back and fourth desperately for an escape. Luke pulls a gun out of somewhere and fires a couple of shots through the roof, just enough to send the Winter Soldier back to the roof of the SHIELD car.

They bump Ashton’s car – a small nudge, but without a steering wheel, it’s enough to send them into the median, then spin back into traffic.

“Fuck, hold on,” Calum says, uses his shield to push through the door, loops one arm around Luke and back to the shield, grabs Ashton with the other, and sends them through the door onto the road as the car starts to flip.

Ashton falls as the shield slides, manages to roll out of it and duck behind his now overturned car. Luke jumps up and disappears somewhere, Calum brings up his shield, just as some sort of explosive is sent right at him. He flies off the bridge, down into the middle of an intersection. He hears cars screeching around him, but it takes him a minute to recover.

He hears screams, further down the street from the bridge. He takes off, finds the Winter Soldier, narrowing in on Luke, crouched behind a car.

He goes at him at a sprint, lifts his shield to make a hit, but the Winter Soldier’s metal fist connects instead, sending jolts up Calum’s arm and into his spine. The Winter Soldier pushes the shield aside and kicks Calum back, but he rolls and crouches behind his shield. Shots bounce off of it, and when Calum looks, the Winter Soldier has ducked behind a car.

Calum kicks over it, deflects more shots and figures that at this point, getting in close, too close for guns, is his best play.

He throws a punch and catches the Winter Soldier in the head, but he recovers quickly. Calum loses the shield somehow, stuck behind him in a van. The Winter Soldier is fast, faster than Calum. He pulls a knife out of nowhere and Calum is barely deflecting, not getting in a single good hit himself.

Calum has been in a lot of fights. Fights he had no hope in hell of winning, back before the serum. Fights he knew he’d come out of on top. Fights against aliens, even, but Calum has never been so unsure. Calum does not know if he can win, he does not know that he’ll lose. His world is flipping, he’s out of breath. He doesn’t have time to think of a strategy, he doesn’t have time to wonder where Luke is, and why he’s not helping. He only has enough time to react.

Calum manages to land a kick, finally, and the Winter Soldier falls back against a truck, but the he surges forward and grabs Calum’s neck with the metal hand, cutting his airway, then throwing him back against a van – against the van with the shield.

Calum pulls the Winter Soldier down to the end of it, kicks him off and pulls his shield from the metal. The Winter Soldier comes in with a heavy punch, and Calum wedges his shield into the arm, hears metal grinding and tearing. Before the Winter Soldier can recover, Calum grabs back and flips him away, throws him ahead. He feels the mask come off in his hand, drops it to the side and plants his feet for the next blow.

The Winter Soldier lands in a crouch, facing away from Calum. He pulls out a gun as he stands, and then he turns, and if Calum felt heavy before, now he feels empty. Everything inside of Calum, his heart and lungs and stomach and throat, they all drop right down to his feet. Calum is dizzy, he’s breathing but nothing is coming in. His mind is blank, every moment of his life up to this minute, gone. None of it matters, not a moment, except for this; Calum reaching out, the handle tearing away from the side of the train, and the way his heart fell out of his chest when he realized that there was nothing he could do, that it was too late.

It’s him, Calum knows that it’s him. He’s not aged, so even with the long hair, dark now, when it used to be blond. Calum would know this face in any lifetime.

“Michael?” he breathes, whispers.

“Who the hell is Michael?” Michael says, steps forward intently. He raises the gun, and Calum can’t do anything, can’t raise his shield or duck or run or look away. All he can do is stare.

All of a sudden, something is swooping in, and Michael’s on the ground, and it takes Calum a long moment to realize that it’s Ashton with his wings.

While Michael is jumping to his feet, a blast comes from over Calum’s shoulder and hits the ground between them. Calum turns his face away from the dust as sees that it was Luke, slumped against a car, holding his shoulder.

When Calum turns back, the dust is settling, and Michael is gone.

After all of that, fucking Fury is still alive.

Hill manages to find Calum, Luke and Ashton and to get them out before SHIELD narrows in. Luke is hurt, shot in the shoulder. He’s lost maybe a pint of blood; Ashton has to help him into the bunker Hill has brough them to with an arm around his waist. Calum should help, but he’s only aware of Luke and Ashton and Hill and his surroundings in a fuzzy, subconscious way.

Hill leads them to a makeshift medical wing, clearly cobbled together. A medic, or maybe even a doctor, rushes over to look at Luke’s shoulder, but Luke’s eyes are on the bed across the room.

Fury lifts his head when he noticed them, and Calum is still too emotionally absent to be surprised.

“Well it’s about damn time,” he says.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Luke says, and goes to take a step forward, but stumbles. Ashton jumps forward to catch him.

“Let’s get you sitting down,” Ashton says, and the doctor pulls up a few chairs. Luke collapses into the first one, Ashton takes a seat at his side. There’s a flurry of movement around him, but Calum just stands, watching.

“What happened?” Luke asks once his shoulder is being treated.

“Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collar bone, perforated liver, and one hell of a headache,” Fury says, and it takes Calum far too long to understand that he’s listing his injuries instead of explaining how he’s alive. “But otherwise, I’m okay.”

“They cut you open,” Luke says, sounding slightly unsteady, but Calum doesn’t know if it’s because Fury lied to him or because of his injury. “Your heart stopped.”

“Tetrodotoxin B,” Fury says. “Slows the pulse to one beat per minute. Banner developed it for stress. It didn’t work out for him, but we found a use for it.”

“But why didn’t you just tell me?” Luke asks. “Why didn’t you just tell us?”

“Any attempt on the director’s life had to look successful,” Hill says, from behind Calum. He can’t bring himself to turn and look at her.

“They can’t kill you if you’re already dead,” Fury adds. “Besides, I wasn’t sure who to trust.”

Luke nods, something between anger and disappointment, carefully concealed. Calum has come to know Luke better than he though he did.

Someone shows Calum to a bathroom so he can clean himself up – he’s got dust and dirt all over, and some of Luke’s blood too.

He stares at himself in the mirror for a long time, tries to come up with a single thought, a single idea of what he could possibly do.

Because they’ve done something to Michael, and Calum can’t leave him, can’t not save him a second time. They have to have done something, Michael would never forget Calum, would never not know him.

He doesn’t have a plan, he doesn’t even know where to start. But it’s all he has, it’s all he can think of. Michael is alive, and Calum needs him, and he needs Calum. Things are as they’ve always been, even now, after everything has changed.

A knock comes to the door. “Calum? We’re ready to get started,” Ashton says through the door.

Calum clears his throat. “Coming,” he says, then stares at himself for another minute as he hears Ashton’s footsteps fade away.

He doesn’t know what to do, but he knows that SHIELD has Michael, or at least, the HYDRA part of SHIELD does. And Calum has always believed in doing the right thing, and fighting for freedom, and he’s always protected as many lives as he could, and he will do that today, and tomorrow, and for the rest of his life. But he also knows that taking down SHIELD is his best chance to find Michael.

He leaves the bathroom and finds his way to a table, where Fury, Hill, Ashton, and Luke are seated.

Luke is holding himself a bit stiffly, and his shoulder is bandaged, but he seems alert and steady.

“We have to stop the launch,” Luke says as Calum finds a seat.

“I don’t think that SHIELD is accepting my calls anymore,” Fury says, ever sarcastic. He pulls up a case and opens it, revealing three square discs.

“What are those?” Ashton asks.

Hill takes a breath. “Once the helicarriers reach three thousand feet, they’ll triangulate with Insight satellites, becoming fully weaponized.”

“We need to breach those carriers,” Fury continues, “Replace their targeting blades with our own. And it has to be all three of them.”

“If even one of those ships remains operational, a whole lot of people are going to die,” Hill says, looks around the room. She doesn’t need to say that they’ll all be a part of that group.

“We have to assume that everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA,” Fury says. “We have to get past them, insert these server blades, and maybe, just maybe, we can salvage what’s left—”

“We’re not salvaging anything,” Calum interrupts. His voice is scratchy and worn, he clears his throat. “We’re not just taking down the carriers, we’re taking down SHIELD.”

“SHIELD had nothing to do with this—”

“SHIELD’s been compromised, you said so yourself,” Calum says, interrupting again. “HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed.”

“We’re in a fucking cave,” Fury says. “I noticed.”

“How many paid the price before you did?”

Fury sighs and leans back, something sympathetic coming over his face. “I didn’t know about Clifford.”

Calum clenches his jaw, because if he thinks about it now, he might fall apart. Maybe he already has. Calum knows that he’s doing the right thing, but he’s never been so personally motivated in his life. He thinks about what they could possibly have done to Michael to make him not know Calum, and his resolve strengthens. “I don’t care.”

“Look, Calum—”

“No. SHIELD, HYDRA, it all goes,” he says. He and Fury stare each other down for a moment.

“He’s right,” Hill says, and they both turn to look at her. “Calum’s right.”

Fury looks to Luke, who’s face hardens. He turns to Ashton, who shrugs. “Don’t look at me, I’m here for him,” he says, nods at Calum.

“Well,” Fury sighs. “It looks like you’re giving the orders now, Captain.”

They have some time before they can head out – Luke needs to hydrate, and Hill needs to prepare. Calum finds his way outside and climbs up to the roof.

He’s trying to focus, trying to ready himself for a mission, for what amounts to just another time that he’ll save the world, but it’s not just another time, and he’s not focused.

Instead, he’s thinking about Michael, how he was there when Calum was a scrawny kid getting bullied, and how he protected Calum, but also taught him to fight, to stand on his own. Michael is the only person Calum knew before the serum that didn’t underestimate him.

Calum thinks about how Michael was there when he got pneumonia and probably shouldn’t have lived, how Michael stayed when Calum’s mom couldn’t, how he stood by for every grueling moment of the recovery process, how he never treated Calum as any less than he was.

He thinks about how Michael was there when his mom died, leaving him an orphan. They’d been building up to moving in together anyways, they’d always planned to, but it wasn’t supposed to happen like it did. Michael kept him going in every way, kept him waking up and moving and fed. Without Michael, Calum very literally would not have survived.

Michael’s been all Calum’s had since the beginning. Michael had always promised, together to the end of the line. Calum had always promised the same right back.

“He’s going to be there.”

Calum turns at the voice – Ashton is walking up behind him.

“I know,” Calum says. He turns back to look straight ahead.

“I don’t know who he used to be,” Ashton says. “I don’t know who he was, or what he meant to you, but who he is now? I don’t know if he’s the kind you can save,” Ashton sounds sympathetic as he says it, he sounds sorry. “You need to prepare yourself, because I think he might be the kind you stop.”

Calum takes a long, heavy breath. He thinks about reaching out, the handle pulling away from the train, Michael falling, and realizing that he was too far, too late. “I don’t know if I can do that,” Calum says softly.

“He might not give you a choice,” Ashton says. “He doesn’t know you.”

“He will,” Calum says, much more firmly. He doesn’t know how, but he knows that it’s true, because it has to be true.

“Are you sure?” Ashton asks. Calum turns back again, sees concern clear on his face, but also something else, maybe something a little bit jealous, because Ashton doesn’t know the whole story, but he knows what it is to lose someone, and he knows what it is to need a chance to save them.

“I’m sure,” Calum says. Ashton nods, and Calum knows that he’s on his side. Under them, a car starts. “It’s time,” Calum says.

Hill produces one of the old Captain America uniforms out of nowhere.

It feels weird, and maybe wrong to wear it again. He had one like it during the New York invasion, but this one is much more similar to the one he wore during the war. It feels like stepping into someone else’s skin.

He and Ashton come into SHIELD headquarters through the control tower – the communications guys don’t even question them. They help set up an announcement, heard throughout the entire building.

Calum looks back to Ashton one more time before he starts to speak into a microphone. Ashton nods encouragement, and Calum takes a breath, presses the _speak_ button.

“Attention all SHIELD agents,” Calum says. His voice rings a little through the speakers. “This is Calum Hood. You’ve heard a lot about be over the past few days. Some of you were even ordered to hunt me down, but I think it’s time you know the truth. SHIELD is not what we thought it was; it’s been taken over by HYDRA. Alexander Pierce is their leader. The STRIKE and Insight crew are HYDRA as well. I don’t know how many more, but I know they’re in the building. They could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they want – absolute control. They shot Nick Fury, and it won’t end there. If you launch those helicarriers today, HYDRA will be able to kill anyone that stands in their way, unless we stop them. I know I’m asking a lot, but the price of freedom is high. It always has been, and it’s a price I’m willing to pay.”

Calum turns to Ashton, who nods again.

“If I’m the only one,” Calum continues, “Then so be it. But I’m willing to bet I’m not.”

Calum swallows, releases the button. He steps back, and Ashton steps forward. “How am I supposed to believe you’re just a normal human man when you can just spew shit like that? Did you even think about it before you said it, or did it just come to you on the spot?”

“On the spot,” Calum says, forces a smile, then finds that it shifts into something more genuine. “I’m programmed for rousing speeches; did you know I did a propaganda tour in the 40’s?”

“I might have seen something about it once, yeah,” Ashton laughs softly. “Do you think Luke is doing okay?”

Calum sighs – Luke is in disguise, in a room with Alexander Pierce. He can only hope that he’ll be able to protect himself, that his injury won’t reveal him. But it’s Luke, and Calum has never known anyone so composed in his life, never known anyone so capable of telling a good lie. “He’s always okay. He’s one of the best.”

“I hope you’re right,” Ashton says. Calum hopes that he’s right, too.

Calum fights his way onto one of the helicarriers from the ground, while Ashton works in the air. Calum can see him spinning and twisting, dodging gunfire. 

He gets in, hopes that Ashton has done the same. Finds the targeting centre and inserts Fury’s server blade.

Hill’s voice comes into Calum’s earpiece, says “Got it, Cap. Falcon, where are you?”

“I had to take a detour,” Ashton says in Calum’s ear. By the time Calum has made his way back to the top deck of the helicarrier, Ashton’s voice is back on the earpiece, triumphant. “I’m in.”

“Good,” Calum says into the comm on his wrist, “Because I’m going to need a ride.”

“On my way,” Ashton says, and Calum jumps. He falls for a moment, then Ashton is swooping in, grabbing him by the wrist. Ashton flies them up to the deck of the last helicarrier, drops Calum and lands gracefully in step next to him. “You know, a warning would have been nice.”

“I gave you one,” Calum says. “The jump was the warning.”

“Would it even have killed you? Would you have just bounced back up like a cat?”

“I haven’t tested it,” Calum says, as they walk.

“Weekend plans?” Ashton says. They pass a crate, and something hits Calum, sends him right off the edge. He manages to grab onto an edge, but he sees Ashton fall past a moment later, missing a wing, only to pull his parachute.

“Cap?” Ashton says in the earpiece. “Calum? Are you okay?”

“I’m good,” Calum says, then sets about climbing the edge of the helicarrier. “Are you?”

“I’m okay, but I’m grounded. The suit’s down. I’m sorry, Calum.”

Calum reaches a lower level, takes a deep breath. “Don’t worry, I’ve got it.”

He takes off for the targeting centre, faster now that he’s already been through one of them. He reaches the walkway and slows, because between him and the console, is Michael.

He’s not wearing a mask this time, and horribly, Calum wonders if it’s because someone at SHIELD knows that he’ll never be able to hurt Michael.

“People are going to die, Michael. You know I can’t let that happen,” Calum says, verging on desperation already. He doesn’t know if he can fight Michael, not now, not knowing that it’s him.

Michael doesn’t say anything, just stands, eyes hard.

“Please don’t make me do this,” Calum sounds utterly broken, and he can’t bring himself to care. He needs to do the right thing, he’s always promised to do the right thing and to fight for freedom and he will, but he needs to save Michael, too. He needs it more than he’s ever needed anything in his life.

Michael doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t know Calum. He doesn’t, but he has to.

“Michael, I know you know me. I know you do. I don’t know what they’ve done, but I know that they can’t take me away.”

Michael still doesn’t react.

Hill’s voice comes into Calum’s earpiece. “Six minutes,” she says, and Calum sighs.

“Michael?” Calum says, and when Michael doesn’t react, he throws the shield. He just needs to get past. Calum just needs to get through and insert the sever blade and then he can take Michael away, somehow. 

Michael lifts the metal arm, deflects and sends the shield right back into Calum’s hand. Calum’s already closer, though, and shifts the shield as Michael pulls out a pair of guns and starts to shoot. Calum blocks most of them, but one gets through and grazes his side.

Calum pushes into Michael with the shield, and he falls back, but stands quickly, pulls a knife as he does. Calum manages to avoid it, lands a good hit and sends Michael back far enough that he can get to the control panel.

He activates it, but Michael is back on him before he can insert the server blade.

Michael’s faster than Calum, and nearly as strong. Calum deflects and deflects but he’s not on top, and he’s pulling his punches. He just needs to get the server blade in, he doesn’t have time to be careful, and he doesn’t know how to hurt Michael, he never will.

He manages to get some space between them, but Michael is between him and the control panel now. He runs at Calum, sends them both over the edge of the walkway and onto the floor, made of glass and thin metal beams. The server blade slides away, and in the second Calum follows it with his eyes, Michael has a blade in Calum’s shoulder.

He stumbles and pulls it out as Michael dives for the server blade. Calum grabs his arm, the non-metal one, the one holding the server blade. He pushes Michael’s face away, and Michael is fast, but Calum is stronger. He’s stuck.

Michael twists and something in his arm pops, he screams but doesn’t let go. He pushes himself back, onto Calum, who manages to trap his other arm with his leg.

He struggles, but Calum has him, and they both know it. Calum thinks about the last time they were this close, the last time he had Michael on top of him, and desperately pushes the thought away.

“Let go,” Calum says. Michael thrashes and Calum shifts to a chokehold. “Don’t make me do this,” he says, but he’s running out of time, and he’ll be too dead to save Michael if he doesn’t get the server blade into the control panel.

Michael keeps struggling until he passes out, which shatters Calum, but he doesn’t have the time to be broken.

Calum lets Michael fall, limp from his arms, and grabs the server drive from his hand. He rushes up to the walkway, launches himself up and pulls himself onto it.

“One minute,” Hill says in the earpiece.

Calum lands in a crouch and stands, starts to run, when a sharp, searing pain hits his leg. He hears the gunshot after he feels it hit, and turns to see Michael, standing and aiming. Calum doesn’t have time, so he keeps running, dodging the bullets.

He reaches the control panel as a shot hits him in the back. Calum collapses under it, body refusing to answer his commands. He slides to the ground, breathing as Hill’s voice comes into his ear again, saying “thirty seconds.”

Calum forces his arms to move, pulls himself forward. His legs won’t cooperate, but he manages to get himself up against the control panel. He inserts the drive and it clicks into place. Hill’s voice comes into his ear, “got it,” relieved. “Okay, Cap, get out of there.”

Calum can hear the helicarriers shift, knows that they’re now programmed to target each other. “Fire now,” he says.

“Calum—”

“I said fire now!”

Hill is quiet for a moment, then, gently, “Okay,” and then Calum pulls out the earpiece and drops it to the ground.

He turns, falls into the railing on the other side of the walkway, and looks down, and there’s Michael.

A beam has fallen on him, and he’s trapped. And he doesn’t know Calum, and Calum has never been in so much pain in his life, and he’s probably going to die, and Michael has probably killed him, and Calum is still so in love with him, after 70 years, after they’ve each died once already, that he doesn’t care at all.

Calum gets back down there, slowly, limping. Michael is struggling under the beam; his arms are pinned. Calum lifts it, just enough that Michael slides out.

They stay on the ground, struggling to catch their breath. Michael is turned away.

“You know me,” Calum says, and then Michael stands and throws a punch.

“I don’t!”

Calum stumbles back, and the helicarrier lurches and Michael stumbles too.

“Michael, come on. You’ve always known me.”

They regain their footing and Michael throws another punch. This one misses, but it still throws him off balance. Calum stays stable as he can be, considering the helicarrier is going down into the Potomac and the glass is shattering around them and he might be bleeding out.

“Your name is Michael Clifford,” he says, and Michael shakes his head.

“Shut up!” he shouts.

“I’m not going to fight you,” Calum says. Michael takes long, heavy breaths, and Calum swallows, then drops the shield through a broken pane of glass. His eyes flicker down as it falls into the river, then right back up. “Michael, please. You know me.”

Michael runs at him, and Calum isn’t steady enough, and he falls to the ground. Michael comes down on top of him. “You’re my mission,” he hisses, holds Calum down with a hand to his chest. Calum can’t beat back the memories this time, the flashes of him and Michael, everywhere, always. Michael has always been the best part of him, and he can’t fight him.

“Then finish it,” he says, and means it. “Because I’m with you to the end of the line.”

Michael freezes, and Calum feels something swell in his chest, something hopeful. Michael pulls back, flinches, shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it.

Something crashes into the glass next to them, and suddenly Calum is falling. Up above him, he can see Michael, crouched back on a beam, staring down.

Calum hits the water hard, and everything goes dark, except for this: Michael’s arm around his chest, pulling him up onto the side of the Potomac, looking down with knowing eyes.

Calum wakes up in a hospital and feels like he’s been crumpled up and spit out.

He looks around cautiously, and Ashton is next to him, slouching in a chair, eyes closed.

There’s music playing, something unfamiliar but soothing. Sunlight is coming in through the window, but Calum instinctively knows that time has passed.

He looks back at Ashton. “On your left,” he says.

Ashton opens his eyes and grins.

A few weeks later, Calum and Ashton meet Luke at Fury’s grave, filled with an empty casket.

“You blew all of your covers,” Calum says. While Calum was fighting in the helicarriers, Luke was posting all of SHIELD’s data online, including the documents concerning himself.

“And then went to mouth off on Capitol Hill,” Ashton says.

“They’d be stupid to put me in a prison. They need me, they need us.” Luke shrugs, then holds out a folder. “I called in a few favours from Kiev.”

Calum flips it open, and an old picture of Michael in uniform faces him. It hurts less than it would have a month ago, but it also hurts more. Beneath it are pages and pages of HYDRA records, detailing everything they had on their favourite weapon, the Winter Soldier.

“Are you sure you want to pull on this thread?” Luke asks, and Calum doesn’t answer. If Luke thought that Calum could be talked out of it, he wouldn’t have brought the folder. Ashton steps forward and looks over Calum’s shoulder.

“You’re going after him?” Ashton asks, but he asks it like he already knows.

“You don’t have to come with me,” Calum says, to both of them.

“I know,” Ashton says.

“When do we start?” Luke asks.

Their search is interrupted when Calum has to go save the world.

They have a decent lead, they’re following a trail through Austria when Barakat calls him and Luke in to go deal with Loki’s scepter, a problem that builds to a rogue AI, an entire city – Sokovia – literally lifted into the sky, and what amounts to the recruitment of a young Sokovian named Wanda Maximoff that can move things with her mind, among other things.

Ashton keeps searching while Calum and Luke deal with everything else, until the trail runs dry. They’re not giving up, Calum cannot give up, but Rumlow keeps stirring up trouble, and they need to take care of it. They finally catch him in Lagos, but Calum freezes up when Rumlow mentions Michael, distracting him so he can set off an explosive, and Wanda tries to send it into the air, but it ends up decimating half of an office building.

They end up in a meeting with Barakat, and his best friend Merrick, and Barakat’s solution to the rogue AI… which was another AI… named Vision, and the Secretary of State, Thaddeus Ross.

“The world owes the Avengers an unpayable debt,” Ross says, in his condescending tone that makes Calum grind his teeth. “You have fought for us, protected us, risked your lives. But while a great many see you as heroes, there are some who prefer the word _vigilantes_.” 

“And what word would you use, Mr. Secretary?” Luke asks, smiling but voice cold.

“How about _dangerous_?” he says, and the air in the room thickens. “What would you call a group of US-based, enhanced individuals, who routinely ignore sovereign boarders and inflict their will wherever they choose, and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind?”

Ross presses some button and images appear on the screen behind him, damage that was left behind after the battles in New York, Washington, Sokovia, Lagos. Wanda looks down as the last one flashes, and Calum straightens.

“That’s enough,” he says. Ross nods and turns off the screen.

“For the past four years, you’re operated with unlimited power and no supervision. That’s an arrangement that the governments of the world can no longer tolerate, but I think we have a solution.”

Calum sighs – he knows that Wakanda is furious, he knows that they lost eleven diplomats in Lagos, he knows that everyone wants answers, and everyone wants things to be better. He’s willing to listen, but he doesn’t like Ross, and he doesn’t trust him, either.

“The Sokovia Accords,” Ross says, grabs a thick stack of paper and slides it onto the table. Luke takes it, starts to flip through. “Approved by 117 countries. It states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organization. Instead, they’ll operate under the supervision of a United Nations panel, only when and if that panel deems it necessary.”

Luke slides the papers across to Calum, face even. It’s been years, and Calum still can’t read Luke, sometimes.

Calum flips it open, stares blankly at the lines and lines of tiny print. “The Avengers were formed to make the world a safer place,” he says, looks up at Ross. “I feel we’ve done that.”

“Can you tell me where Bruce Banner is right now, Captain? Or where Rian Dawson is?” Ross says, and Calum can’t, assumes that Rian is at home in Asgard but can’t prove it and hasn’t heard anything from Banner since Sokovia, over a year ago. “If I misplaced a couple of 30 megaton nukes, you can bet there would be consequences. We need compromise, we need reassurance. This is the middle ground.”

“So,” Merrick says evenly. “There are contingencies?”

“Three days from now the UN meets in Vienna to ratify the Accords,” Ross says. Calum looks back at Jack, disbelieving. Jack’s eyes are down. “Talk it over.”

“And if we come to a decision that you don’t like?” Luke says.

“Then you retire,” Ross says, and then he’s gone.

A heavy silence falls over them, and Calum continues to stare down at the Sokovia Accords, until suddenly everyone around him is talking at once.

Merrick and Ashton are shouting at each other about Congressional Medals of Honor, Vision is spouting out equations, Luke is sniping at Barakat, who’s snapping right back.

Calum skims through the accords, tries to drown everything out until Barakat is standing up, stomping around, and Calum can’t ignore it, anymore. Everyone falls quiet, too, as Jack puts a photo up on a screen.

“That’s Charles Spencer,” Jack says, and Calum has seen him sarcastic, has seen him drunk, has seen fighting, but he’s not sure that he’s ever seen him so angry. “Great kid. Computer engineering degree, 3.6 GPA, had a floor-level gig at Intel planned for the fall. But first, he wanted to put a few miles on his soul, before he parked it behind a desk. He wanted to see the world, maybe be of service. Charlie didn’t want to go to Vegas, or Fort Lauderdale, which is what I would have done. He didn’t want to go to Paris, or Amsterdam, which might be fun. He decided to spend his summer building sustainable housing for the poor, guess where? Sokovia.”

Calum watches as everyone’s eyes fall to the ground. Everyone’s but Luke’s, who turns right to Calum.

“He wanted to make a different, I suppose,” Jack says. “I mean, we’ll never know, because we dropped a building on him while we were kicking ass.”

Luke tilts his head at Calum, a question, but one that Calum doesn’t know the answer to. Calum gives a marginal shake of the head back.

“There’s not decision-making process here,” Jack continues when no one speaks up. “We need to be put in check, and if this is the form that takes? I’m game. If we can’t accept limitations? If we’re boundaryless? We’re no better than the bad guys.”

“Jack,” Calum says, stopping him. “If someone dies on your watch, you don’t give up.”

“Who says we’re giving up?”

“We are if we don’t take responsibility for our actions,” Calum says. “This document just shifts the blame.”

“That is dangerously arrogant,” Merrick says, voice tight. Calum knows that he’ll always side with Jack, the way that Ashton will always side with him, but this is just irrational. “This is the United Nations we’re talking about. It’s not the World Security Council, it’s not SHIELD, it’s not HYDRA.”

Calum bristles at that, a little. “It’s run by people with agendas, and if I’ve learned anything since waking up in the future, it’s that agendas change.”

“That’s good, that’s why I’m here,” Jack says. “When I realized what my weapons were capable of in the wrong hands? I shut it all down.”

“But Jack, you chose to do that. If we sign this, we surrender our right to choose,” Calum says. Luke and Ashton are both looking at him, and he knows what they’re both thinking, he knows that they know he’s worried for the right reasons, but also for the wrong ones. “We’re not perfect,” Calum continues, looking pointedly away from Luke and Ashton. “But the safest hands are still our own.”

“If we don’t do this now, it’ll be done to us later,” Jack says, Wanda takes a sharp breath.

Everyone is silent for a moment, then Luke sighs. “Maybe Jack is right,” he says, quiet, low. Calum whips his head to look at Luke and can see Ashton do the same. “If we have one hand on the wheel, we can still steer.”

“Aren’t you the same man who told the government to kiss his ass a few years ago?” Ashton snaps, harsh and biting. Calum knows that it’s just to hide the hurt, and he’s sure that Luke knows, too.

“I’m reading the terrain,” Luke says, composed, even now. “We have made some very big, very public mistakes. We need to do damage control, we need to win their trust back, if we ever want to work as the Avengers again.”

“By giving up our say in our own involvement?” Ashton says.

“If that’s what needs to be done,” Luke says.

“I can’t, I just – I can’t,” Ashton shakes his head, then stands and storms out.

Calum looks at Luke for a long moment, then shakes his head too. “You’ve always followed your own set of rules.”

“And look where that got me,” Luke says. “I’m on every watchlist.”

“I don’t hold your past against you,” Calum says, gives Luke a meaningful look. Because Luke knows what the Accords would mean for Michael, and for their search, and Calum thinks Luke is loyal to him, or at least, he thought he was.

“Maybe it’s time that you do,” Luke says, and Calum stands and storms out too.

Calum starts to look for Ashton after a few hours, finds him up on the roof of the Avengers headquarters in his newer, sleeker, Barakat Tech wings. He’s sitting, legs dangling over the edge, but his hair is messy, so Calum knows he’s been flying.

Calum climbs up, scales the side of the building, flipping like an acrobat to get up to the top.

“I already know that you’re a specimen, you can stop acting like you’ve just stepped out of a video game,” Ashton says, but his voice is tired. Calum flops down next to him less than gracefully to make him smile.

“If I don’t show off once per day, my superhero status will be revoked,” Calum jokes, but it falls flat, given the circumstances.

Ashton sighs heavily. “Why would he do that?” he asks, and Calum knows that he means Luke.

“I don’t know,” Calum says. “I trust that he believes it’s the right thing.”

“How could he?” Ashton asks. “After everything he’s been through? After everything we’ve worked for?”

“He’ll come around,” Calum says, even though Luke won’t. Luke is a collection of mysteries, but the one thing Calum knows about him is that he’s sure of himself.

“He’s leaving us, do you realize that? He’s throwing his lot in with the others, and he won’t be able to come with us when we pick up the search.”

Calum thinks of the look that Luke had given him, while Jack was talking about the kid from Sokovia. “He thinks that it’s over,” Calum says.

“What?”

“The search. He thinks it’s over. He thinks we’ll never find him.”

“But – he can’t,” Ashton says. “We were so close—”

They weren’t close, and they both know it. “He’s spent his entire life making the choice that will keep him alive. That’s what he thinks he’s doing,” Calum says.

“But what about Clifford? What about us?” _What about me?_ Ashton doesn’t ask, but Calum can hear it underneath the words. He’s never asked, and he’s never watched, but he’s always wondered what was between them.

“I guess it’s just me and you, now,” Calum says, because nothing will make this better, and lying will only make it worse.

“It will be, if we make it through this whole Accords mess,” Ashton says. “You know, we could run if you wanted. We could get out now, go find him. I’d follow you.”

“I know,” Calum says, is silent for a minute. “We can’t walk away. They’re our team, they’re our friends.”

“We both know that he’s always been more important,” Ashton says, and he’s never asked Calum about it, but Calum is pretty sure that he knows Michael was always more than the historians said.

“Maybe,” Calum says. “But I can’t walk away. Not yet.”

“Then I’m with you,” Ashton says. They don’t talk about Luke, about what it means that he’s sided himself with Jack. They don’t talk about Michael, and how their trail ran dry almost a year ago and that they’ve have no new leads since. They can’t talk about it, so they sit, and they stare out over the Avengers campus, and they hope that whatever is about to change won’t destroy what they have.

Calum is dissecting the Michael folder for the hundredth time, late that night, when Luke finds his way into Michael’s room.

“You could have knocked,” he says.

“I did, you didn’t hear me,” Luke smiles. “You must have forgotten to turn on your hearing aids.”

“These jokes never get old,” Calum says, heavy on the sarcasm. Luke laughs softly.

“Not to me,” he says. He comes close to look over Calum’s shoulder, sighs a little when he sees that it’s the folder.

“When I came out of the ice, I thought everyone I had known was dead,” Calum says.

“He might be, Calum. We don’t know that he’s out there.”

“He has to be,” Calum says. “I’d know if he weren’t.”

Luke sighs again. “Even if he is, he’s not the same man. He doesn’t know you. He almost killed you, twice.”

“You don’t know him,” Calum says, but not defensively.

“I do, though. I know who he is now, probably better than you do,” Luke says. Calum looks up at him – he forgets about Luke’s past sometimes.

“It’s different, though. You were a child when you started training. He had a life, he was happy, before they took him.”

“He doesn’t know you anymore,” Luke reminds him gently. Calum knows that he thinks he’s helping, but it just frustrates him.

“He does,” Calum says stubbornly.

“I know he was important to you, but you need to understand that he’s not the same. You keep acting like you just need to find him, and everything between you will be how it was 70 years ago.”

Calum ignores Luke, because he’s worried that he might be right. “Who else agreed to sign?” he asks, meaning the Accords.

Luke stares at him for a second, calculating. “Barakat, Merrick, and Vision.”

“Alex?”

“Says he’s retired,” Luke says with a smile.

“Wanda?”

“To be determined,” Luke says, and Calum nods. “I’m going to Vienna for the signing of the Accords. There’s plenty of room on the jet.”

“I can’t,” Calum says – he can’t sign, but he can’t walk away.

“Just because it’s the path of least resistance, doesn’t mean it’s the wrong path. Staying together is more important than how we stay together.”

Calum searches Luke’s face for some emotion betraying him, but can’t find anything. “But what are we giving up to do it?” he asks, and Luke exhales, clearly can’t answer. “I’m sorry, Luke. I can’t sign it.”

“I know,” Luke says.

“Then why are you here?”

“I know what this is taking from you,” Luke says, looks down at the folders. “I wanted you to know that I’m sorry too.”

“Then don’t sign it,” Calum asks, a little desperately.

“It’s not that simple.”

“It could be.”

“No, Calum,” Luke says, firm. “117 countries want these Accords. I can’t let my decision come down to one man.”

“Not even if that one man is Ashton?” Calum says, and Luke takes a slow step back, but keeps his composure.

“Not even then, not even if I wish I could.”

“Do you?” Calum asks. “Wish you could just choose him?”

“Yes,” Luke says. “But I can’t.”

“You should say goodbye to him, before you go.”

“I know,” Luke says, sighs. “But I can’t do that either.”

“Because then you might stay,” Calum says, and Luke smiles an agreement.

“I’ll see you soon, okay?” Luke says.

“Yeah, I’ll see you soon.”

Calum and Ashton watch on the news as the UN complex in Vienna is bombed. They release video of the suspect, a man in all black with only his eyes and nose uncovered.

They say that it’s Michael.

The king of Wakanda is dead, and Calum hasn’t heard from Luke, and there’s a manhunt out for the love of his life.

Calum calls in a favour from a CIA agent, former SHIELD. They get a promising tip that he’s in Romania, but she tells them that he needs to act fast. There are orders out to shoot on sight.

He turns to Ashton after he hangs up. “I’ll start up the Quinjet, go get your wings.”

“Are you sure?” Ashton asks.

“Go,” Calum says, and they rush off.

He’s got everything ready to go, just waiting on Ashton, really, when his phone rings. He checks the caller ID, sees that it’s Luke, and breathes a sigh of relief.

“Are you okay?” he answers, bubbling out of him in concern.

“I got lucky,” Luke says. His voice is strained, tired, but even. He pauses, and the Quinjet whirrs, and Calum knows that Luke will hear it. “I know how much Clifford means to you,” Luke says, too knowingly. “I really do, but you need to stay home. You’ll only make this worse.”

“Will you arrest me?” Calum asks, because Luke might be the only one who could track him down.

“No,” Luke says. “No, but someone else will.”

“It has to be me, Luke. I have to be the one to bring him in.”

“Why?”

“You know why,” Calum says, tight. Ashton appears at his side, narrows his eyes at the phone pressed to Calum’s ear, then darts about the Quinjet, preparing for takeoff.

“That’s exactly why you _shouldn’t_ ,” Luke says.

Calum exhales, long and hard. “I’m the one least likely to die trying,” he says, because it might not be the main reason he has to be the one to go after Michael, but it is still true.

Luke hangs up and Calum pulls the phone away slowly, stares at the screen as it flickers to black.

“Was that Luke?” Ashton asks. Calum lifts his eyes, slides into the passenger seat so that Ashton can pull the jet into the air.

“Yeah.”

“Is he okay?”

“He says he got lucky,” Calum says. Ashton nods, small and quick.

“So, he tried to tell you to stay out of it?” Ashton asks, and Calum doesn’t dignify that with a response. “He might have a point,” Ashton says, nearly a mumble.

“Michael would do it for me.”

“In 1945, yeah,” Ashton says.

“Ashton,” Calum says, firm and important, “It’s Michael. I have to.”

“You barely made it out last time you saw him,” Ashton reminds him gently. “I just want to make sure we consider our options. Usually the people shooting at you end up shooting at me, too.”

“He knew me,” Calum says. He waits for Ashton to roll his eyes as he usually does, waits for Ashton to tell Calum that the moment in the river was an outlier, and Calum had been too injured to know what he saw, and that Michael had no reason to save him.

Ashton doesn’t, though. Ashton nods, and presses some buttons that set them on track. “Let’s hope he knows you again.”

The apartment is empty when Calum arrives, so he waits. He finds a book, some kind of research journal. He flips through it – a lot of it is the same as the information in the folder, but there’s a lot about Calum, too.

Ashton is on the roof, watching for law enforcement. Of course, Michael slips right past him.

Calum turns before he processes the sound – a footstep, intentionally audible, and Michael is standing there, in the middle of the room.

He looks clearer than last time, more present. He’s got a baseball cap on, and his hair is a little shorter. It’s still dark though, and Calum misses the blond.

He’s wearing a black sweater and an army green jacket with gloves, and he looks like Michael.

Calum had spent so long searching for Michael, had imagined finding him so many times. He’d thought of so many things to say, so many possibilities. Here, with Michael in front of him, the realest he’s ever felt, it all fizzles away.

“Do you know me?” The question leaves Calum’s throat without intention, voice making up for the absolute emptiness in his head. He feels lightheaded, he feels dizzy.

“You’re Calum Hood,” Michael says, expressionless, but not like before. Now, he’s expressionless like it’s intentional. “I read about you in a museum.”

Ashton’s voice appears in his earpiece, saying “They’ve set the perimeter.”

“I know you’re nervous,” Calum says, takes a tentative step forward. Michael doesn’t flinch, doesn’t brace for a fight. “I understand why.” Another step. “But you’re lying.”

“You’re in the history books,” Michael says. Calum takes another step.

“Do you know me?” Calum asks again.

“I wasn’t in Vienna,” Michael says instead of answering, and it takes Calum a shameful moment to remember that’s why he’s really here. “I don’t do that anymore.”

Ashton, in Calum’s earpiece, says “They’re entering the building, I’m compromised.”

“Do you know me?” Calum asks. Michael exhales, but otherwise doesn’t react. They’re out of time. “Vienna? The people who think it was you? They’re coming here now, and they’re not planning on taking you alive.”

“That’s smart. Good strategy. It’s what I would do,” Michael says, familiar sarcasm creeping into his voice. Calum wants to cry, but he hasn’t got the time.

Calum can hear footsteps pounding up the stairs, and he knows that Michael can hear it too, because he tenses marginally. “This doesn’t have to end in a fight,” he says, quick and tense.

“It always ends in a fight,” Michael says, turns away. He pulls off the gloves, revealing the metal hand.

Ashton, in the earpiece, says “Five seconds.”

“You pulled me from the river,” Calum says, desperate, now. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Michael says.

“You do,” Calum argues. “Do you know me?”

Michael’s head jerks up, and his eyes meet Calum’s for only a few seconds, before the window is shattering and some sort of projectile is flying for the space between them.

They deflect, Calum covers it with the shield but then the door is broken and there are people everywhere and it only takes seconds for Calum to realize that they’re after him now, too.

It’s strange, fighting alongside Michael again. He’s fast, and deflects bullets with his metal arm before they can hit Calum. Calum protects him in turn, putting the shield between them and the best gunman in the room, then knocks him out with it.

They’re on even ground, for the first time ever, and they move around each other like they haven’t spent a day apart. Calum can feel where Michael’s going to be before he’s there, and they fight their way out to a neighboring roof in perfect partnership. Calum has not felt so right since before the train.

The fight becomes a chase, and they end up surrounded, which may have been fine, if Merrick hadn’t shown up in his full-on War Machine getup.

They’re all arrested and brought in, Michael and Calum and Ashton. They separate Calum and Ashton from Michael immediately, and Calum wants to scream, wants to yell and shriek and make them understand that they can’t take him away, not now. He thinks his chances of getting to see Michael again will go down drastically if he does, though, so he keeps quiet.

They’re taken to Berlin, but they let Calum and Ashton out once they get to the UN complex. Calum assumes that Barakat has pulled some strings, and he doesn’t ask questions. He sees Michael when he climbs out of the car, locked into place in a chair in a transparent box.

Everett Ross is waiting for them, arms crossed, with uniformed officers behind him.

“What’s going to happen to him?” Calum asks as they approach, fights to keep the desperation out of his voice.

“The same thing that should happen to you; psychological evaluation and extradition,” Everett says. “See that their weapons are placed in lockup,” he says to one of the officers, too smug. “Don’t worry, we’ll write you a receipt.”

“I better not look out a window and see anyone flying around in those,” Ashton grumbles about his wings, petulant on purpose.

Everett starts to walk, leading them away. Calum turns back, hesitates, stares at Michael, for a moment. Officers are rusting about, preparing to move the box somewhere. Calum would probably have been able to find out where, if he hadn’t just been arrested.

Michael meets his eyes, expressionless for a second, but cracks a small smirk, just big enough and just for long enough that Calum can see. He settles back into his cold expression as the box is pushed back and a heavy set of doors close in front of it.

Luke appears out of nowhere and falls into step next to Calum as they’re led to an office, which Everett stiffly reminds them could be traded for a cell at any moment.

Ashton tenses, and keeps his eyes forward. Luke doesn’t look at him, either.

“For the record, this is what _making things worse_ looks like,” Luke says, carefully light.

“He’s alive,” Calum says. That’s all that ever really mattered.

“At what cost?”

Calum doesn’t speak – not because he has regrets, but because he knows that Luke won’t like the answer. Calum would do anything for Michael, has to keep him alive, no matter the cost.

Barakat is on the phone when they reach the office, talking loudly about the Accords and consequences and shooting Calum glares.

When he hangs up, Calum looks at Ashton, then back at Jack. “Consequences?” Calum asks.

“Secretary Ross wants you both prosecuted,” Jack says, points between Ashton and Calum. “I had to give him something.”

“I’m not getting my shield back, am I?” Calum asks. The absurdity of the situation and the relief of knowing that Michael is alive brings a smile to the corners of his lips, which he knows just pisses Jack off even more.

“Well, technically it’s the government’s shield,” Luke says, joins Jack as he walks away. “The wings, too,” he adds, eyes flicker to Ashton for just a moment before he turns away.

“That’s cold,” Ashton mumbles, but it’s Luke, so he hears it.

“Warmer than jail,” Luke says without turning.

They leave them in the office for a few hours, but through the glass doors, Calum can see security screens, including a feed of the room they’ve got Michael in. He’s still in the box, locked down to the chair. He’s not trying to struggle or fight, just sitting calm, staring straight ahead.

Jack lets himself back into the room after a while, when Ashton has been led away to answer some sort of questions, or something.

“Want to see something cool?” Jack asks, mostly Calum. “I pulled this from dad’s archives. It felt, I don’t know. Timely.”

Jack sets a thin box in front of Calum and pops it open to reveal two ink pens.

“FDR signed the Lend-Lease bill with these in 1941. Provided support to the Allies when they needed it most,” Jack says.

“Some would say it brought our country closer to war,” Calum says, smiles to show Jack that he isn’t looking for an argument.

“If not for these, you wouldn’t be here,” Jack reminds him, like Calum doesn’t know that, like Calum doesn’t sometimes wish for it. Without the war, he and Michael would never have been torn apart. They would have had the life that they were always supposed to have. “I’m trying to offer an olive branch, or whatever you call it.”

Calum breathes, long and even. He catches sight of Michael on the screens behind Jack’s head, and looks back down at the pens. “I don’t mean to make things difficult,” Calum says.

“I know, because you’re a very polite person,” Jack says, and Calum knows that he’s thinking of all the time they’ve spent together by now, thinking of the banter and the easy conversation and the things that they don’t talk about, too. The harder things.

“If I see a situation pointed south, I can’t ignore it. Sometimes I wish that I could.”

“No, you don’t,” Jack says.

Calum smiles. “No, I don’t.”

“Sometimes I want to punch you in your perfect face. Is that bone structure all serum, or are you just lucky?” Jack asks, but Calum knows that he doesn’t want the answer. “I don’t want to see you gone, though,” Jack adds. “We need you. So far, nothing has happened that couldn’t be undone if you just signed.”

Calum picks up one of the pens, twirls it between his fingers.

“We could make the last 24 hours legit,” Jack says, baring down now that he thinks he has an opening. “I could have Clifford transferred to an American psych-centre instead of a Wakandan prison.”

It’s tempting, is the thing. It would be easy, and despite everything, Calum does trust Jack. “There would have to be safeguards,” Calum says. He stares down at the pen in his hands, but he can see Jack twitch from the corner of his eye.

“Sure! Once we put out the PR fire, we can made amendments. I’d file a motion to have you and Ashton and Wanda reinstated—”

“Wanda?” Calum asks, guilty that he’s forgotten her part of the situation. “What about Wanda?”

“She’s fine,” Jack says quickly, maybe too quickly. “She’s confined to the compound currently. Vision is keeping her company.”

“Seriously, Jack?” Calum stands in frustration, paces the office. “Every time I think you’re doing the right thing—”

“It’s a 100-acre compound with a lap pool and a screening room. There are worse ways to protect people.”

“This isn’t protection, Jack, it’s internment,” Calum sighs.

“She’s not a US citizen and they don’t grant visas to weapons of mass destruction, my hands are tied. What would you have done?”

Calum ignores him, because they both know what Calum would have done. “She’s a kid,” Calum says instead, voice hard.

“Give me a break! I’m doing what has to be done.”

Calum scoffs. “You keep telling yourself that.” He puts the pen back and slumps down into a chair, arms crossed.

“This doesn’t have to be a fight just because that’s what you’re used to,” Jack says, more gently, now. Calum ignore him, and Jack sighs, but stands and leaves Calum to stare at Michael on the screen.

Ashton comes back just as the psychologist arrives. They watch through the glass, but they can’t hear anything. Jack and Luke are standing outside of the office, within sight, watching the screens as well.

“Why would the Task Force release that photo anyways?” Calum asks, now that he’s has some time to stop and think. He looks over to Ashton, who shrugs.

“Get the word out? Involve as many eyes as they could?” Ashton says.

“Yeah,” Calum says, pauses for a moment. “It’s a good way to flush a guy out of hiding. Set off a bomb, get your picture taken? Get seven billion people looking for the Winter Soldier.”

“You think someone framed him to find him?” Ashton asks, a hint of disbelief in his tone. “We looked for the guy for two years and found nothing. Luke looked for him even before that and found nothing. He was a ghost story for 70 years.”

“Bombing the UN turns a lot of heads,” Calum says.

“Calum, stop and think, for a second. Are you sure this isn’t wishful thinking?”

“It doesn’t feel right,” Calum says, and Ashton sighs, but he trusts Calum, so he doesn’t argue.

“Even if someone framed him, bombing the UN? Setting the world after him? It wouldn’t guarantee that whoever framed him would get him. It guaranteed that these guys would,” Ashton says, gesturing out to Jack, Merrick, Luke, Everett.

Calum focuses his attention back to the screen. “Yeah, but it still doesn’t feel right.”

Like he’d given a cue, the power goes out. Lights flicker to black, the screens go dark, and people are running everywhere, typing furiously at keyboards, speaking hastily into phones.

Jack walks off, speaking to his AI, presumably. Calum tears out of the office with Ashton at his heels and stops in front of Luke.

“I’m your best bet,” Calum says, and Luke nods once.

“Sub-level 5, east wing,” Luke says, and then Calum is running.

Guards are unconscious in the hall when Calum gets close, and he slows. Ashton manages to catch up, and they ease into the room where Michael is being kept.

There are more unconscious guards, but someone is speaking, mumbling “help me.” It takes Calum only a second to recognize him as the psychologist.

“Get up,” Calum huffs, storms over and lifts him, presses him into the wall. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“To see an empire fall,” the psychologist says.

Ashton moves to join him, steps forward, and Michael appears from nowhere, only his eyes are blank. He gets the metal arm on Ashton before he can react and throws him across the room, then he turns to Calum.

There’s no recognition, now. Nothing in this Michael knows Calum, even though he’s sure that Michael knew him before. Calum lets the man who is probably not a psychologist go just as Michael throws a punch. Calum manages to duck away from it, and then Michael is fighting him.

Calum can’t fight back, not really, not now. He deflects but he doesn’t even try to land any blows of his own, just keeps taking steps back until they reach the elevator. Michael pushes him right through, breaks the doors and sends Calum tumbling down.

He’s unconscious for a few minutes, probably, because when he’s aware again, it’s quiet. He stands slowly, limbs protesting but already beginning to heal. He takes a few breaths, and if he wasn’t sure before, now he is. Michael is brainwashed, probably has some sort of trigger phrase, and no one else cares, and he needs to get to him, so he climbs.

He finds Jack unconscious and Luke coughing in the lobby. He rushes over, looking around desperately for Ashton or Michael.

“Are you okay?”

Luke nods, rubs at his throat. “He’s going for the helicopter,” Luke says, so Calum rushes off.

Michael is taking off when Calum arrives, and it’s stupid, and reckless, but Calum needs to be the one to get Michael, so he takes off to the helicopter at a run, jumps and hooks his hands on the rails and swings his body to bring it back down to the roof.

He gets a hold on the rail of the roof with one hand, and slows the helicopter enough that Michael changes tactics. He brings it down, crashes right past Calum, nearly takes his head off as it spins to a stop.

Calum fights for his footing but Michael punches the metal arm through the glass, gets a hand on Calum’s throat. They’re at the edge of the roof, and there’s water under them, and it’s poetic, really, Calum thinks, as he pushes the helicopter forward and into the river.

Michael’s head hits the dashboard hard as they hit the water, and his grip slackens. Calum fights the currents, pulls himself to the door and manages to pull Michael out, unconscious. He makes it up to the surface, arm around Michael’s chest, and pulls him to the side of the river.

He gasps and pants as they reach land, breathless with exertion and panic and familiarity.

It doesn’t feel like a plan while it’s happening.

Ashton finds him on the edge of the river, presumably saw the helicopter go down. Calum is sitting against a tree with Michael propped up against his chest. He’s still got his arm around him, couldn’t force himself to pull it off.

“The not-psychologist got away,” Ashton says. “I tried to go after him, but without the wings—”

“It’s alright,” Calum says, still breathless. “Had bigger concerns,” he nods down to Michael, still unconscious.

“Is he still—”

“I don’t know,” Calum says. He doesn’t know how to break the brainwashing, he doesn’t know how to pull Michael back to himself.

“He can’t wake up here,” Ashton says, and he’s right, but Calum is sore and tired and overwhelmed and he doesn’t know if he can let Michael go, not now that he’s holding him like he has so many times before.

“I know,” Calum says, He opens his mouth to deliver a plan, but nothing comes.

“Stay here,” Ashton huffs. “If I’m not back in ten, get yourself out.”

Ashton doesn’t say that he should leave Michael behind in this scenario, but he implies it, which is ridiculous, at this point. “Be careful,” Calum says instead of arguing, to save time.

“Always am,” Ashton says, then he’s back off through the trees.

Calum keeps vigilant for the first few minutes, but he finds himself stroking patterns onto Michael’s arm with his thumb – a habit, even now.

“To the end of the line,” Calum mumbles, head low and close to Michael’s hair. He’s not sure what he expects, but Michael doesn’t stir.

Ashton comes back before ten minutes have passed, helps Calum lift Michael and they carry him to a car. Calum doesn’t ask how Ashton acquired it, because he’s stolen cars a couple of times in an emergency and has no ground to stand on. Besides, he’s grateful.

They slide Michael into the back seat, lay him across. Calum craws into the back with him and pulls his head into his lap. Ashton slides into the front seat and gives Calum a long look in the rear-view mirror.

“In case he wakes up, and he’s still trying to kill everyone,” Calum says, but Ashton just shakes his head.

“Can you be biased, here? Can you do what needs to be done, if it comes to it?”

Calum is silent, which Ashton takes for the answer that it is.

“You’re going to get us killed,” Ashton sighs.

Ashton drives them to an abandoned warehouse. Calum has no idea how he’d found it, but he doesn’t ask questions anymore, if he can help it.

Ashton comes up with the bright idea to trap Michael’s metal arm in some industrial vice in the warehouse, and Calum can’t think of a better idea, so the prop him up on a box and pin him in. Calum must keep shooting guilty looks, though, because Ashton huffs.

“It’s a metal arm. He can’t feel it.”

“We don’t _know_ that,” Calum says.

He wanders off while they wait for Michael to come to, keeps watch through a broken window. It’s probably no use – it they’re found, they’re screwed. They have no weapons, they’re tired, and this place is too open to hide. He can’t stand to watch Michael, worry about who he’ll be when he wakes up, though, and at least this way he feels like he’s doing something.

“Calum,” Ashton says from across the room, looking over at Michael. Calum rushes over, leaves his spot by the window to watch as Michael stirs.

“Where am I?” Michael groans. He pushes himself up, sits a bit straighter. He’s here again, he’s present like he wasn’t before.

“Which Michael am I talking to?” Calum asks, careful to keep the hopefully swell in his chest out of his voice.

Michael looks up at him, long and considering. “Your sister’s name was Mali,” Michael says, and Calum takes a sharp breath. “You used to dream of playing major league baseball. You sang when you cooked, or when you tried to. You had a beautiful voice,” Michael stares, and Calum is frozen. “We got caught in the rain that one time, coming back from a movie, maybe a few months before Pearl Harbour. The streets were dead, and we hid in the entrance to that deli by our place until they kicked us out. We were soaked through, got water everywhere when we got home. You were shaking like a leaf, and I was worried you’d catch pneumonia again, but you said—”

“Ashton,” Calum interrupts, but keeps his eyes on Michael. He couldn’t look away if he tried. “Get out.”

“What?” Ashton asks. “No way, he could be—”

“Get out,” Calum repeats. “Now.”

Ashton walks out, and Calum strains his enhanced hearing to listen to him leave the building. Ashton may be protective, but he does trust Calum.

Michael watches Calum, composed, but he still has the same tells, and his right hand, the real hand, is twitching.

“You remember?” Calum asks, Michael nods. “All of it?”

“I think so.”

“Did you remember on the helicarrier?”

“No,” Michael says. “I knew that I knew you, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t even know your name.”

“And on the overpass?”

“No.”

“And in Romaina?”

Michael hesitates, searches Calum’s face for something. “Yes, I remembered.”

“Okay,” Calum says, nods. “What about back at the UN complex? Did you remember me, then?”

“I did, right up until he said the words.”

“What words?” Calum asks.

“The words. They make me – it’s hard to describe,” Michael sighs. “Everything HYDRA put inside me is still there, just inactive. All he had to do was say the fucking words.”

“Who was he?” Calum asks. He wants to find out what exactly Michael remembers, he wants to find out what they might be, now. He knows that the not-psycholotist is still out there though, and he knows that he needs to protect Michael more.

“I don’t know,” Michael says.

“The bombing, the setup – the doctor did all of that just to get ten minutes with you. I need more than that, Michael.”

Michael twitches at his name, some sort of aborted response that Calum cannot even begin to think about, right now.

“He wanted to know about Siberia,” Michael says, closes his eyes. He still has the same tells, and Calum knows that he’s fighting to remember, battling something in his own head.

“What’s in Siberia?”

“It’s where I was kept,” Michael says, and Calum’s heart sinks, impossibly lower than it already was. “He wanted to know exactly where.”

“What else is there? Anything he could be after?”

Michael opens his eyes, alert and aware. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“I’m not the only Winter Soldier. He’s after the others.”

Calum nods, closes his eyes for a split second, tries to pull himself together. “Alright, help me get you out of that thing.”

Together, with both of Calum’s hands and one of Michael’s, they pry open the vice. Michael stands and twists the arm a few times and it grinds into place.

“Can you feel it?” Calum asks. He starts to walk over to the broken window to look for Ashton, to try to wave him in.

“No, not like you mean, anyways,” Michael says, following Calum.

“It doesn’t hurt?”

“No,” Michael says, but it sounds like a lie. “What’s your plan?”

“Who said I have a plan?”

“You always had a plan, when I knew you,” Michael says, smiles small but fond.

Calum smiles back. “I did, didn’t I?”

“They were usually shitty plans.”

“Got us out alive, didn’t they?” Calum says, and Michael laughs. It sends a chill down Calum’s spine.

“Something like that, I guess,” Michael says. “What are you doing?”

Calum is watching through the window, wants to get on the move, wants to make sure Michael is going to stay safe, so that they can figure out the rest of it. “I’m waiting for Ashton.”

“Ashton? Is that the bird guy?”

“Yes, but don’t call him that to his face,” Calum says.

“Thanks for the heads up,” Michael says, and Calum knows the glint in his eyes too well, knows that Michael has realized he’s struck a nerve. “What happens when he gets back?”

“We call some friends.”

They meet Alex and Wanda in the parkade of the airport in Berlin. They took a van, and they have Calum and Ashton’s gear.

“You owe me for this,” Alex says, chucks the shield sloppily to Calum. “Luke will never forgive me. I had to call in so many favours.”

“I wouldn’t have called if I had any other choice,” Calum says, and Alex grins.

“We both know you could never save the world without me,” Alex says. “Besides, retirement is boring.”

“What are we up against?” Wanda asks, cutting in and boiling everything down to the point, as she ususally does.

“Super-solider assassins. HYDRA’s best,” Calum says. Wanda shrugs and Alex chuckles.

“Could be worse. Could be aliens,” Alex says.

“You know what Michael can do – we have to go face five of him, with just the five of us,” Calum explains, but Alex and Wanda are still unbothered. “We’re outside the law on this one. Are you sure about this?”

“Shut up, Cap,” Alex says. He looks past Calum, watches as Michael and Ashton gear up. “So that’s him?”

“Yeah,” Calum says.

“He’s really worth losing everything?” Alex asks without judgement, without resentment.

“Always has been.”

“Alright,” Alex says. “Then let’s go, already. I’ve been itching for a fight for months.”

Alex had lined up a chopper for them, and the plan was to lie low, avoid attention, and get to Siberia.

Barakat shows up with Merrick in their Iron Man and War Machine suits and everything goes to shit.

Calum goes out to face them on his own, figures he has to try to explain, at least. It’s Luke, and it’s Jack. They should be able to trust his judgement, after all that they’ve been through together.

“Funny running into you here,” Jack says, going overboard on the sarcasm.

“Hear me out, Jack,” Calum says. Jack and Merrick exchange a look. “That doctor, the psychologist – he set all of this up.”

Jack rolls his eyes, ignores Calum. “Ross gave me 36 hours to bring you in, and it’s been 24 hours. Do you really want to see what happens when he gives it a go?”

“You’re after the wrong guy,” Calum says firmly.

“Your judjement is askew. You’re biased, Cap,” Jack says. “Your old war buddy killed people yesterday.”

Calum ignored the jab, because he knows that Jack only says it to get to him. “There are five more super soldiers just like him. I can’t let the doctor find them first. There was a time you wouldn’t have been able to, either.”

“Calum,” Luke says, and Calum whips his head around. There’s Luke, dressed for battle, behind him, staring him down with knowing eyes. “You know what’s about to happen. Do you really want to punch your way out of this one?”

“It wasn’t him, not really,” Calum says, pleads with his eyes, asks Luke to remember the searching, to remember what he’s always knows – that Calum has never loved anyone more than he loves Michael, and that he can’t step aside.

“You knew what would happen when you ran,” Luke says, perfectly composed and even.

“It wasn’t like that—”

“But you still did it.”

“Alright,” Jack intterupts, and Calum turns back to face him. “That’s enough,” Jack says, calls in some kid in a onsie who manages to snag Calum’s shield with some sort of webbing and stutters through an awkward introduction.

“You’ve been busy,” Calum says to Jack.

“Yeah? Well you’ve been a fucking idiot. Dragging Alex into this? Rescuing Wanda from a place she didn’t even want to leave? I’m trying to keep you from tearing the Avengers apart.”

“You did that when you signed,” Calum says.

“No,” Jack says. “We’re done here. You’re going to turn Clifford over and you’re going to come with us, because it’s _us_.”

Calum doesn’t say what he wants to, which is that when Michael is in the equation, the only _us_ that matters is him and Calum. Luckily, he doesn’t need to think up something else to say, because Ashton’s voice comes into his earpiece.

“We found it. Their Quinjet is in hanger five, north runway.”

“Wanda?” Calum says into the comm at his wrist, and then the shield is flying back into his hands.

Jack takes off, probably going after Wanda, because he thinks that she’s the biggest threat, and he’s right. The kid runs too, hopefully getting out before the fight, but more likely chasing down Ashton and Michael.

Merrick goes for Calum, so he throws the shield. It hits him in the chest and rebound back to Calum, but it only leaves Merrick unbalanced for a moment. He pushes back in, swinging, and Calum mostly dodges. He doesn’t want to hurt Merrick, and the metal armour won’t feel good on impact.

By the time he gets any semblance of the upper hand and tears away, he can see Wanda and Alex running at him from one side of the tarmac, Michael and Ashton from the other. They’ve got a clear path, the others behind them, excpet for, of course, Visison.

He draws a line in the ground with a lazer out of his head, and they come to a stop.

“Captain Hood,” Vision says, in his echoing voice. “I know you believe what you’re doing is right. But for the collective good, you must surrender now.” Jack and Merrick fly over them, land next to vision. Luke comes out of nowhere, as he tends to, and the kid swings in on the webs.

But Calum has Michael at his side, and he’s always felt strongest with Michael. He has Ashton at his other side, who he trusts with everything he has. Wanda is next to him, strongest of them all, and then there’s Alex, the heart of the team.

“You don’t have to do this,” Michael says, barely a whisper.

“What do we do, Cal?” Ashton asks, louder.

“We fight,” Calum says, so they do.

They’re all pulling their punches, and Calum realizes quickly that they can’t win, at least, not all of them.

“We’ve got to draw out the flies,”Calum says to Michael, when they’re both ducked behind a truck, dodging Jack’s blasts. “I’ll take Vision, you get to the jet.”

“No,” Ashton voice says in his earpiece, voice warped from the rushing wind as he fights in the sky. “You get to the jet. Both of you. The rest of us aren’t getting out of here.”

“As much as I hate to admit it, he’s right,” Alex says. “You guys have the best shot against the super-soldiers.”

“This isn’t the real fight, Calum,” Ashton says. Calum knows, and he looks at Michael, who knows as well, who knows better than the rest of them. Michael nods, an agreement with Ashton, a promise to follow.

“Alright, Ash. What’s the play?”

“We need a diversion, something big so you can slip past. Wanda?” Ashton asks.

“Yeah?”

“Think you can cook something up for us if I give cover?” Ashton says.

“I’m insulted you need to ask,” she says. Calum doesn’t know what she does, can’t see from his angle, but he hears metal crashing on metal and knows that it’s working.

“Let’s go,” he shouts to Michael over the noise. They sprint to the hanger, only slowing when they get inside to find Luke waiting.

“You’re not going to stop,” Luke says, resigned.

“You know I can’t,” Calum says. Luke’s always known. It was always going to come down to this.

“I hope he’s worth it,” Luke says, and steps aside.

Michael shoots Calum an apprehensive look, and Calum shakes his head.

“It’s not a trap. Go.”

“Not without you,” Michael says, and Calum is back in 1945, on the walkways in HYDRA’s lab, separated from Michael by a wall of fire.

“I’ll be right behind you, go get it started up.”

Michael hesitates, but when Calum nods, he reluctatnly tears himself away. Calum watches him go, only turning back to Luke once he’s pretty sure that Michael’s out of earshot. Calum doesn’t know the extent of his abilities.

“It was never a choice, Luke. It was always him.”

“He’s not the same man he was when you knew him, even if he really remembers, now.”

“He’s still Michael,” Calum says.

“He wasn’t just a friend,” Luke says like he’s known all along. “He was more, wasn’t he?”

“He still is,” Calum says. He owes Luke the truth, after everything. “For me, he still is.”

Luke nods. “You should go.”

“We could use your help, you know,” Calum says. “There’s always room in the jet for another assassin.”

Luke shakes his head, but smiles. “I went straight, remember? No more playing by my own rules.”

“That’s a damn shame,” Calum says, then he goes to the Quinjet, goes to Michael. They get into the air and take off before Jack and Merrick can even try to follow.

“They’re loyal,” Michael says. Calum finishes fiddling with the naviagtion now that they’re on track and looks at Michael.

“What?”

“Your friends, they’re loyal.”

“They’re good people,” Calum says. “They care about what’s right, even when everyone else tells them they’re wrong. They remind me of you.”

Michael scoffs dismissively. “What’s going to happen to them?”

Calum sighs and looks back at the navigation. He doesn’t want to think about it, he doesn’t want to think about the consequences they face for the choice that he made. He stands by it, but he wishes it hadn’t come to this. “Whatever it is, I’ll deal with it.”

Michael is silent for a moment, and Calum turns to look at him again. “I don’t know if I’m worth all of this, Cal.”

Calum shivers at the nickname; it’s been so long since he’s heard it come out of Michael’s mouth. “Things haven’t changed between us,” Calum says. “Not for me, at least. I never stopped feeling the way I did about you before the train.”

“If you knew all that I’d done, you would.”

“All of that, all that you did all those years? It wasn’t you. You didn’t have a choice,” Calum says.

“I know,” Michael says, too evenly. “But I did it.”

Luke told him once that the Winter Soldier was a ghost story, but Calum has never felt it as keenly as he does now.

Calum lands the Quinjet just outside the doors Michael had directed them to. It’s snowing, and they watch the fluffy flakes fall as they make sure their gear is in order.

“That night, when we went to the movie and got caught in the rain?” Calum says.

“A few months before Pearl Harbour?”

“Yeah. You never finished the story, and I just – do you remember it?” Calum asks.

Michael smiles. “Yeah, you were shivering like crazy, I was worried you were going to get pnumonia again, but you said—” Michael trails off, but not because he doesn’t remember.

“I said that I would shake on the hottest day in the desert if you were around in a wet t-shirt,” Calum says.

“And I told you that you had to get out of your wet clothes, and that sharing body heat is the fastest way to warm up,” Michael says. It wasn’t the first time by far, and it wasn’t the last. There was something vivid about it though, something that made them feel like they were on a different world, for the night.

“When you fell,” Calum says, swallows the lump in his throat that’s now a habit. “I thought the world had ended. I put a plane into the ice, and all I felt was happy that I wouldn’t have to learn to live without you.”

“It’s still the same for me too,” Michael says. “I still feel the way I felt about you back then.”

They meet eyes, still for a moment. They’re ready, they’re as geared-up as they’re going to get. They have no reason to stall.

Calum looks away first, walks down the ramp and out of the Quinjet, but Michael doesn’t hesitate, falls into step next to him as they enter the lab.

The first floor is really just a small room, most of the facility is underground. They go in like soldiers, falling easily into their roles from the war. They sweep the area, and finally have to take the industrial elevator down.

It jolts to a start and Calum looks over at Michael, who’s already looking at him. They have no reason to stall, but they can’t make the elevator move any quicker, and Calum doesn’t know what they’re facing, and he doesn’t know how they’re going to pull this one off, and he just got Michael back, and he hasn’t even had time to feel good about it.

Calum could very well lose Michael again in a minute, or Michael could lose him. Maybe that’s why Calum reaches for Michael’s neck and pulls him in, and maybe that’s why Michael kisses him back like nothing has changed. Or maybe it’s just been so long that they can’t resist anymore, that the need to be close again has overtaken them. Or maybe it’s just a habit, now that they finally have a minute to breathe together.

They break apart before the elevator reaches the bottom level, and Calum nods at Michael – reassurance, gratefullness, love, a promise. Michael nods back.

The elevator jerks to a stop, and they step out.

Jack’s there, in the Iron Man suit.

Calum raises the sheild, pushes Michael behind him so that he’s protected.

Jack huffs a sigh. “You seem defensive.”

“I’ve had a long day,” Calum says. His is still on Michael’s chest, keeping him out of Jack’s range. “Why are you here?”

“Maybe your story’s not so crazy,” Jack says. “I was wrong, okay? I saw the evidence, and you were right. It’s the doctor, he’s actually former Sokovia intelligence. His name is Zemo.”

Calum lets go of Michael, reluctantly.

“Ross has no idea I’m here,” Jack continues. “I’d like to keep it that way.”

“I have no shared interest with Ross,” Calum reminds him, Jack laughs.

“You sure don’t.”

They make their way into the chamber, where the super-soldiers are kept. Jack takes the lead, hand raised and ready to blast. Calum has his shield ready behind him, and Michael’s got a gun raised, protecting their backs.

“I’ve got heat signatures,” Jack says as he round the corner.

“How many?” Calum asks.

“Uh – one.”

The tanks come into view – each of them shattered, but the soldiers are still inside, still.

“They’re dead,” Michael says, first to process what they’re seeing. Jack confirms with a nod, scanners in his suit surely telling him more than they can see. “What the hell?

“Did you really think I wanted more of you?” Zemo says, voice echoing as light appears from a window across the chamber, Zemo behind it. “I’m grateful to them, though. They brought you here.”

Calum throws the shield at the window, full-force, It bounces back and Zemo chuckles.

“Please, Captain. The Soviets build this chamber to withstand the launch blast of UR-100 rockets.”

“I could beat that, no problem,” Jack yells.

“I’m sure you could, Mr. Barakat. Over time. But then you’d never know why you came.”

Calum looks at Michael – his gun is on the window, ready. He looks back at Calum, nods.

“You killed innocent people in Vienna just to bring us here?” Calum asks. He walks right up to the window, but Zemo doesn’t flinch.

“I’ve thought about nothing else for over a year.”

“You’re Sokovian,” Calum says. “Is that what this is about? You lost someone?”

“I lost everyone,” Zemo hisses. “And so will you.” He ducks away from the window and a video begins to play on sa creen. It’s familiar, one that Zola had shown in the army base in New Jersey. A flash of a metal arm, a car hitting a tree. Jack steps forward, and Calum’s stomach sinks.

“An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again. But one which crumbles from within? That’s dead, forever,” Zemo says, but Calum is watching Jack, now.

“I know that road,” Jack says. Calum looks at Michael, both growing tense.

They stand, watching in silence, as the car hits the tree. A moterbike swings around and a figure with a metal arm steps off it in a smooth motion, while a man crawls from the front seat of the car. The figure kills him with a couple of carefully placed hits, then rounds the car to the passenger side. He clamps a metal hand over a woman’s neck and holds until she’s gone.

They were Jack’s parents.

“Did you know?” Jack asks. He stares at the sceen, even as it flickers to black.

“I didn’t know it was him,” Calum says, and Jack whips his head up.

“Don’t bullshit me Hood. Did. You. Know?”

Calum breathes. “Yes.”

Jack takes a step back like he’s been struck. He nods wildly, then he swings. Calum is across the room before he’s processed that Jack hit him.

In the time it takes Calum to stand, Jack is already on Michael. Calum throws the shield, it bounces back and puts some space between them, but Jack fires some sort of leg restraint his way, and he’s back at it.

This isn’t like at the airport. This isn’t like the UN complex. Michael is fighting to escape, and Jack is fighting to kill.

Calum breaks the leg restraint off with his shield, but by the time he’s free, Michael has Jack’s hand trapped in both of his, forcing it away as Jack shoots a blast. It misses Michael but hits a feeder tank. It crumbles, taking down pillars as it goes. Michael gets away, gets himseld on Calum’s side of the rubble.

“Get out of here,” Calum shouts. Michael goes to shake his head, but Jack would never kill Calum, and Michael knows that. “Go! Now!”

He takes off for the stairs, pulls a lever that opens a hatch on top. Calum puts his back to the stairs, stops Jack when he gets through the rubble. “Move,” Jack says.

“It wasn’t him, HYDRA had control of his mind—”

“Move!” Jack goes to fly past Calum, but he manages to grab his foot. Calum hits the foot thruster with his shield, hard.

Jack topples into the bottom of the staircase, uses a lazer to collapse the doorway to keep Calum out. Calum hears him trying to fly, but the suit is whining. Jack is grounded.

When Calum gets through, Jack is aiming his remaining hand blaster at Michael, a few platforms up. Calum sprints then jumps up between them, shield facing Jack. The blast rebounds, hits Jack somewhere non-critical, but sends him down. Michael looks up, then back at Calum.

“He’s not going to stop,” Calum says. “You need to go.”

“I don’t want to—”

“I’ll catch up.”

Michael clenches his jaw but listens, races up, platform after platform.

Calum readiest himself for an attack but it doesn’t come. He looks down and Jack is aiming his wrist up at the hatch.

“Michael!” Calum screams. He looks down and ducks away as Jack fires and the heavy hatch comes crashing down.

Jack blasts up shakily, flying on one thruster. Calum jumps for him as he passes but Jack sends him falling back down with a kick to the shield. He hits the ground hard but recovers fast, though his shield has bounced away. Moments later, he and Michael come falling down as well.

Jack recovers faster, hovers facing Calum. “This won’t change what happened,” Calum says, breathless from the impact and the fear.

“I don’t care,” Jack says, cold and hard.

Jack blasts forward, gets on top of Calum and starts punching. Calum dodges a few, but some land. He’s pinned under the heavy metal, until Michael jumps in with the shield, brings it down onto Jack’s back, pushing him off. He tosses it to Calum as he stands, and then Jack is back up and they’re fighting again.

One of Jack’s blasts hits Calum’s side and he crashes backwards. Michael gets Jack backed into the wall and brings the metal hand up to the arc reactor, the suit’s power source. He crushes, but when his upper arm crosses in front of it, trying to get more pressure, Jack sends a blast out from it, severing the metal arm at the bicep.

Michael falls to the ground, barely concious, and Calum runs in, hits at Jack with the shield until something in the suit clicks into place, and Jack is beating him.

It ends with a blast to Calum’s chest – not fatal, but sends him to his knees. The sheild is somewhere to the side, and Michael is behind Jack. He turns his head weakly and looks at Calum.

“He’s important to me, Jack,” Calum says desperately, clutching at his stomach.

“So was I.”

“Not like that,” Calum says. Jack brings his hand up, charges the blaster, but Michael reaches out and pulls at his leg, sending him off balance just long enough for Calum to grab the shield.

He hits Jack hard, and he falls down onto his back. Calum hits at the arc reactor with the sharp edge of the shield, over and over until it digs in and the reactor goes dark.

Calum falls back and sits, fighting to catch his breath. Jack is doing the same, staring at him in disbelief. Everything they’ve ever worked for, everything they’ve built is gone.

Calum stands, when he can breathe, again. He pulls the shield from Jack’s suit and limps over to Michael. He pulls Michael up, awake but weak. He wraps his arm around his waist to keep him upright.

“That shield doesn’t belong to you,” Jack says. Calum turns away, pulling Michael with him. “My father made that shield!”

Calum drops it, and doesn’t turn back.

Calum calls Luke once he has Michael strapped into a seat on the Quinjet.

“You got them? Luke asks.

“What?”

“The super-soldiers? You took care of them?”

“God,” Calum says, chokes out a wild laugh. “They’re taken care of, yeah. I need your help with something else.”

Luke promises that Jack is taken care of, that he’s not seriously injured and that he’s going back to the compound.

What he arranges for Michael is far stranger.

Luke sends them to Wakanda, where, in a hidden city, the teenage princess of the damn country insists that she knows exactly what she’s doing, that she can have an arm for Michael that will serve him better than ever, and also that she can have his injuries healed faster than any hospital in the world.

Luke promised, though. So he lets them carry Michael away on a gurney.

“He’s in good hands, here,” the young king says, standing out in front of the Quinjet.

“I know he is,” Calum says. “My friend tells me great things.”

“Your friend is lucky he was in the right place at the right time,” the king laughs. Calum will ask Luke about it later.

“I should go,” Calum says. He can’t bear to leave Michael, but he can’t bear to do nothing, and there’s something he really needs to do.

“You’re welcome back any time.”

“I’m counting on that,” Calum says. He gets back into the Quinjet without another word, programs in the coordinates Luke had sent him. They’ve never done a jailbreak before, but after everything, it feels almost fun.

Once he’s in the air, he sets up autopilot and writes a letter. He won’t take back his choices, but he won’t turn his back on family. Not even Jack.

Once they’ve broken their friends out of the frankly inhumane raft prison, they split up. Luke takes Alex and Wanda, promises that they’ll be safe, where they’re going.

“And keep in touch,” Luke says to Calum. Calum pulls Luke into a tight hug as an answer. Luke turns to Ashton as he pulls away, reaches out and hugs him too. “You could come with me, if you wanted.”

“Maybe someday,” Ashton says. “I have to see this through.”

“I can’t believe you’re choosing a pair of elders over me,” Luke laughs, but the old joke sobers Calum.

“This will all die down soon enough,” Calum says. “And everything can go back to normal.”

It won’t though, because whatever they had before, it wasn’t normal. What they build next? It might get closer.

Michael still hasn’t woken up when he and Ashton get back.

He spends most of his time sitting at his bedside, sometimes reading, sometimes talking to Ashton. He learns about Wakanda, and he’s fascinated.

It finally happens late one evening, after Ashton has already gone to prepare for bed. Michael’s breath hitches, and his eyelashes twitch.

“It’s just me here, Michael. You can wake up,” he says, shifts to sit at the edge of Michael’s bed, hovers his hand over Michael’s chest but pulls it away when Michael blinks his eyes open.

“You _are_ here,” Michael says. “Wasn’t sure. Kept hearing you in my head.”

“What was I saying?” Calum brings his hand up again and rests it on Michael’s face, brushes his fingers across the edge of his hair. The blond is growing back in now, and Calum is so happy to see it.

“That you’re with me to the end of the line.”

Calum breathes a laugh. “Well, I am.”

Michael smiles, leans into Calum’s hand. “Where am I?”

“You’re in a recovery room in Wakanda.”

“Wakanda?”

“It’s a long story, I’ll tell you in the morning,” Calum says, and Michael hums an agreement. “Hey, do you remember that bar in France? From right after I saved you from the HYDRA lab?”

“Yeah,” Michael says.

“Do you remember what you promised me?”

“I promised you that I’d follow you anywhere. Still would.”

“Yes,” Calum says. “But what else?”

Michael lifts his hand, the flesh one, finds Calum’s hand and threads their fingers together. “I promised that after the war, we’d go dancing.”

“It’s been a few more wars than just the one, but does the offer still stand?”

“When I get out of this bed, it’s a date.”


End file.
